


Extra Hour

by my_inked_asterism



Series: Our Time [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Jonerys Week, Overuse of Metaphores for Aesthetic Purposes, Slow Burn, now that Dany knows what a figure of speech is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_inked_asterism/pseuds/my_inked_asterism
Summary: “A strong black tea latte. With no liquid sugar, please.”“Sure. Name?”“Dany.”“Pretty. Stands for Danielle?”“Nope, Daenerys.”“Oh! That’s beautiful.”“Yeah… I’ll wait there for my tea.”“...Aye.”***Jonerys Coffee Shop Au - you're welcome.





	Extra Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to be 10k, can you believe it?? 
> 
> So, first off this is my first Jonerys fic ever, and also the longest fic I've ever written in one shot (I'm sorry? I got carried away). I've read A LOT of Jonerys fics, however I've tried to give a personal interpretation to these characters, still sticking to the original story line of the show. I've never read of a Jonerys coffe shop AU so I thought I could deliver? Why not. 
> 
> Second, I want to thank my friend Sabrina (stilesssolo on Tumbkr // elizaham8957 on AO3) for polishing my little fic and having done an INCREDIBLE huge beta-work with it. Your advices are just pure gold and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this. Ily xx
> 
> Finally, thank YOU lovely reader, who decided to open this window and launch yourself on my fic. I hope you find it as entertaining as I did writing it.  
> I'm on Tumblr as " ronsweasley " - come talk to me! 
> 
> Now, without any further ado, take an Extra Hour to read my story! xoxo
> 
> \- Giulia

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/146793737@N07/48170309037/in/dateposted-public/)

* * *

“A strong black tea latte. With no liquid sugar, please.” 

“Sure. Name?”

“Dany.”

“Pretty. Stands for Danielle?”

“Nope, Daenerys.”

“Oh! That’s beautiful.” 

“Yeah… I’ll wait there for my tea.”

“...Aye.”

* * *

“You’re staring.” 

Jon starts abruptly at hearing Sam’s voice right behind him. He shakes his head to focus back on readjusting the pastry shelf. 

It’s not enough to avoid Sam’s knowing look, piercing his scalp like a bullet.

Irritated, Jon sighs and finally turns around to his colleague. “What?” 

“Ask her out!” Sam snaps at once, both hands gesticulating frantically towards the source of Jon’s distraction. 

“Shhhh!!” Jon steps forward to keep his friend in place. “She can hear you!”

“Well, that’d be about time!” 

Jon rolls his eyes. “Please, don’t start again, Sam.” 

Sam, for good measure, crosses his arms, spine erect and chin up, and glares fire at him like Jon’s seen done before only by his own mother. “You, Jon Snow, are being ridiculous,” he starts, yes, _again._ “You’ve been obsessed with this girl for _months_ now. Literally months. And the only thing that you know is her name.” 

“And how she takes her tea,” Jon deadpans.

Sam pulls a face, a mix of confusion and pity that makes Jon regret his answer. 

“Just… give it a try! She– wait.” Sam stops only to shout out the name of a client. A brunette guy approaches to take his black coffee and then Sam is immediately back to him. “She’s not into you, I’ll give you that–“

“Thank you, mate.”

“ _But_ it’s not that she can’t be ever. You keep saying she shut you down when you tried but it’s been one time, and then you gave up at once.” 

“Well aye, don’t want her to feel like I’m pressuring her.” 

“Right, but you do have a chance. Girls look at you like they’re about to devour their bloody prey. Daenerys just needs more time, in my opinion.”

“What girls do!?”

Sam sighs. He does sigh a lot. “Jon, are you blind or something? Women here crave you, but lately you’ve been so focused on that girl that you’ve barely noticed.” 

“That’s not even true, they do not.”

“They literally leave their phone numbers on the cups, Jon.”

“Oh shut up, that happened only twice.”

“In a week!” 

Jon pouts. He might be oblivious sometimes. His mother tells him way too many times to let himself forget that, by now. But for how oblivious he can be he’s one hundred percent positive that Daenerys has never once looked at him the way Sam says the others have. He would know, he always has an eye on her.

On the other hand, the fact that his friend insists on him having a chance with her makes Jon’s stomach hurt, both with fear and excitement and that bloody _hope_ that always gets him in trouble. 

She’s not like the others, though, he can tell. First off, she doesn’t even _look_ like the others. Up here in the North the common trait for people to have is dark hair, in general. Hers, on the contrary, looks like it’s made of golden silver, a beautiful contrast to explain but one that makes so much sense in his head. Jon has spent way too much time studying the waves of her locks when the coffee shop isn’t very crowded, the way they seem to absorb the sunlight when she sits next to the window, or the complicated braids that make her look like a queen. 

Of course having such a prestigious university in town like the North University, Jon’s more than accustomed to seeing people from all around the country, and Daenerys must be one of them for sure. She always comes to the coffee shop right after lunch, orders her usual tea, takes a seat and starts pulling massive books out of her bag. Then, barely looking up at anything else that happens around her, she studies. His gaze rarely leaves her, and for how much Samwell says he knows little about her, Jon could easily make a list of all the things he’s learned by only observing.

He’s noticed that her back never curves while sitting. She has this regal pose all the time, even when her eyes get tired and weariness shows on her beautiful face, her spine remains straight. He’s noticed she learns _fast_ . She follows the lines with her fingers and after one read she repeats it instantly, mouthing the words in a way that Jon has grown fond of. When she _doesn’t_ learn fast, though, and has trouble understanding something, Jon can tell that too. Her perfect eyebrows furrow, almost touching together, and she bites her lower lip hard in frustration. 

Jon has also noticed that she likes to stay longer than others. Winterfell Café is probably the only coffee shop in the city that stays open until late in the evening. They always close at 9 P.M.; Jon decided on that policy and even though Sam, who owns the cafè with him, wasn’t thrilled about it, as long as they agreed on Jon covering the last extra hour and Sam opening the coffee shop first thing in the morning, they were fine.

He offered to close that late for personal schedule reasons. The second youngest of his cousins, Arya, takes fencing lessons in a gym right beside the coffee shop, and her training always goes from 7 P.M. to 9 P.M. five days per week, so he would usually wait for her and drive her home. For him it’s but a pleasure. He adores Arya, and they treat these late evenings like a tradition by now. Besides, he doesn’t care about getting home later; his mother is often busy with nurse shifts and if he doesn’t make coffee because it’s too late in the evening, he at least earns some money by selling the last pastries to the kids of the fencing gym.

People usually leave at 8 P.M. or before for dinner, but Daenerys always waits until closing time, still studying. And that’s probably why he really doesn’t care about staying late at work.

He gets a little extra money, and an extra hour with her alone. 

* * *

Dany shuts the door behind her, her back resting on it, and closes her eyes, exhausted.

“Tough day?” she hears Missandey ask.

Dany opens her eyes back and smiles softly at her roommate. “Endless.” She slips off her booties and joins Missandei on the couch, contently taking the glass of wine she offers her. 

“What happened?” 

Dany takes a sip, the sweet taste of their favorite wine working as a balm to her nerves. “The date for the ‘Techniques in Neuroscience’ exam has been moved up _one week_ ,” she starts. “I had to skip lunch break today because I had a meeting to discuss the last details for my final thesis with Professor Mormont, and the library won’t allow me to rent another book ‘cause apparently you can take no more than three books out at a time.” Dany sips her wine and throws her head on the couch dramatically. “I mean what’s even the point, _three_ books! That’s ridiculous.” 

Missandei purses her lips, restraining a smile of both amusement and affection. “I’m sure that’s a policy for your department only. We can rent a maximum of five.”

“What!? That’s unfair!” Dany exclaims, a shade of indignation and jealousy hinted in her tone. 

“Well, I guess it’s because many of the books we have to take out are vocabularies…” 

“Right...” Dany huffs. “I’ll try to ask Professor Mormont if he’ll lend me a couple ones, anyway.”

“Oh, I’m pretty positive he will,” Missandei says with a mischievous grin, before finishing her wine in one last sip.

“Stop that!” Dany shouts with a laugh. “You’re imagining things.” 

“Dany, he’s _into_ you.”

“He’s _old._ ”

“So? He’s fetching for his age, though.”

“Oh my god, Dei.” Dany shakes her head, the ghost of the laughter still on her lips. “It’s not like that. And even if it was I don’t have time for that right now. My academic schedule is busy enough without a love interest in it.” 

Missandei is about to retort, her expression turning more serious to face the topic that’s lately been annoying Dany the most— love, dating and all sorts of sentimental things that have always failed her in her lifetime. 

So before her best friend manages to speak, Dany immediately interjects. “Speaking of love interests,” she smirks, eyeing Missandei’s leather dress, “aren’t you supposed to be with Mr. Grey tonight?”

Soft red spots appear on Missandei’s dark skin at once, and for how funny it is, Dany can’t help but think she’s the cutest human being ever. “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” she replies awkwardly. “And don’t call him that.” 

Dany laughs. “You know I like that guy. I’m happy for you.”

“You deserve someone just as good, Dany.”

Dany opens her mouth, not sure what to say. None of her relationships have ever brought anything good into her life so far, and she finds it hard to put into words what she thinks she deserves. 

She doesn’t tell Missandei any of those things, though. The ringing bell of their condo cuts her off before she can say a word, and partly she’s glad for it.

Dany wishes her best friend an amazing night, and she hugs her softly in return, like usual. Come to think of it, Missandei is the only one person Daenerys trusts with physical contact that doesn’t involve sex. 

As the brunette closes the door, Dany takes the last sip of her wine and dials Daario’s number on her phone. 

After all, she has to ease the effect of theine somehow. 

* * *

Today she’s _radiant_. 

Jon likes to think the hint of a bruise behind her ear has nothing to do with her mood. 

She’s wearing a white turtleneck jumper and skinny jeans that make her legs look longer, despite her tiny figure. Her hair is tied up in a long ponytail with one single little braid across the side of her head. 

She greets him with a tight smile, her lips stained dark pink, matching the rest of her makeup perfectly. 

“The usual, please,” Dany orders.

“Of course,” he manages to say, words coming out more like a whisper. 

She’s just so… effortlessly gorgeous. She doesn’t even try that hard to look so magnificent and yet here she is, setting the place on fire with every step she takes. 

Today is the day, he decides. Jon’s gonna talk to her today. 

“I’m gonna talk to her today,” he says out loud, just to set a mutual agreement with his brain. 

“What?” 

Sam appears from the kitchen, a quizzical look on his face, as if he isn’t sure he just heard what he really heard. 

“You’re going to talk to her?”

“Aye.”

“Like, for real? A real talk that doesn’t involve tea? You sure you can make the big step, mate?”

Jon punches him on the shoulder in response at his sarcasm, but he can’t help but cackle. Samwell laughs with him and pats his shoulder in approval before going back to the kitchen. If this works Jon will owe his friend one. 

The clock strikes four; the cafè is mostly full but after the usual post-lunch rush they finally have a moment of rest. Sam’s shift ends in hour, meaning after that Jon will remain alone to handle the clients. If he wants some free time to approach Daenerys, he has to spare some while Sam is still here. 

So Jon takes a step out from behind the counter, heading towards Dany’s table, heart pumping and air stuck in his lungs in anticipation. He starts playing nervously with the keychain in his pocket, the one representing a wolf that Uncle Ned had given him when he was a kid, palms slightly sweating at the contact with it. He’s now only a couple of steps away from her, cautious. 

Then she slowly lifts her head, with those enormous eyes looking in his direction, and _smiles_. Not the composed smile of hours ago, but a wide, content smile, her eyes beaming. Jon thinks he’s never seen anything brighter in his whole life. 

Daenerys stands up, all five foot three of elegance that she is, and waves towards him. 

Oh… wait. 

“Hey Dany!”

Not towards him. 

A woman’s voice comes from behind him, steps coming closer, and he can finally spot the familiar, tall, dark-skinned girl walking fast to Dany’s table and embracing her in a hug. 

The two women finally sit together and start chatting, ignoring Jon, who’s now standing in the middle of the corridor with his arms weak by both his sides, his mouth having fallen open a little, unable to close. Slowly, his head turns to the counter, only to find Sam’s cringing expression already staring back at him. 

His heart suddenly feels heavy in his chest, the spark of hope that minutes ago had kept him standing fading so fast that Jon wonders if it ever was there in the first place. 

He heads back to his post, joining Sam behind the counter. 

“One day,” his best friends starts, smiling, “you’ll laugh about this.”

Jon throws him a homicidal look and Sam struggles to restrain his laughter; for his part, Jon admits he must’ve been a comedy scene to watch. 

“Uhm, hey,” calls Dany’s voice then, so unexpected.

Jon turns to her, right after waving goodbye to Sam as he walks out of the café. 

“Hey!” he replies. 

“I’d like to order one more tea latte for me and a caramel macchiato for my friend.”

“Sure, I’ll put your name on both?”

“Yes. Thank you, Jon.” 

Then she smiles kindly, and returns to the table, leaving Jon speechless at only the sound of his name on her lips, unable to form any other thought as he starts preparing the drinks. 

He didn’t even know she knew his name.

* * *

Dany doesn’t know why having Missandei around makes her so light and warm at the same time. She’s her best friend— probably the only best friend she’s ever had in her entire life. What brought them together was anything but light and warm circumstances, though. 

She had met Missandei in their Psychology of Language course, the only subject that they had in common. They bonded very quickly, being two of the few foreigners in class among all northern people— not that they were discriminated against, but locals here just took a while to warm up to students coming from outside. 

From day one, Missandei had proved to be the gentle soul Dany still admires today, and it was that kind of rare kindness— something Daenerys was so little accustomed to— that had captivated her immediately.

They started spending more and more time together as the semester went on. Finally,Dany confessed to her friend she was about to rent a condo for her own, but that she was looking for someone to share it with, unused to the loneliness after spending her whole childhood with two older brothers. It happened that Missandei was looking for a place to stay, too. She told Dany of her horrifying family background, the abuse, the poverty… 

It was automatic, organic, to better say, the agreement Dany offered: she wanted Missandei to come stay at her place, be the roommate and best friend Dany had only ever imagined having in her wildest dreams. She would pay for all the rent of the condo for as long as Missandei needed her to, reassuring her friend that her scholarship would’ve let her afford _way_ more than a small condo. Still, Missandei’s protests had gone along for a good ten minutes, to the point that Dany had stopped rebutting her arguments and just sat, patient. 

“Are you done?” she had asked after Missandei’s infinite monologue about her moral values and money conditions.

“Well…”

“I told you it’s no problem! I have the money,” Dany had continued, standing up to get closer to her new roommate. “All I need is a good friend.” 

“I can’t accept all that money, Dany. This is a _huge_ favor.” 

“You’ll make it up to me, okay? Take your time to find a job, and you’ll give it back whenever you have the chance. But I want _you_ to get out of that house and to be my roommate.” She had smiled fondly at her. “So? What do you say?” 

“Okay.” Missandei had given her a teary smile. 

And that’s how their friendship had upgraded. 

Now here they are, sitting at Winterfell Café like childhood friends, Dany opening her laptop to update some of the research for her final thesis and Missandei searching through Russian vocabulary to translate some businessman’s paperwork. 

Randomly, Missandei lifts her head and narrows her eyes, studying something in front of her. 

“I like Jon with his hair tied back,” she states finally, out of nowhere. “I’ve never seen him wear it like that before.” 

At that, Dany’s completely taken aback, and she has to turn around to see who’s Missandei’s referring to. “Who?” she asks, glancing back at her friend in confusion.

“Jon,” she repeats. 

Daenerys stares at her exasperated, eyebrows arched, asking for an explanation.

“Dany.” Missandei looks suddenly indignant. “You come here every damn day and you don’t know _his_ name?!” She points at the counter of the café, with a nod for good measure, and now Dany understands who she’s talking about. 

“I– I only come here to study…” 

Missandei sighs. “You’re unbelievable.” 

“ _Unbelievably_ _kind_ ‘cause I’m about to offer you a coffee?” Dany concedes with a ‘sorry for being so oblivious’ smile. 

Her friend’s look shines in excitement, eyes widening in that exaggerated way that always makes Dany chuckle. “Yes please, coffee!”

“Caramel macchiato?” Dany asks, still laughing.

“You know me well.” 

“I’ll be right back.” 

Dany walks towards the counter. As she’s approaching, she sees Jon waving goodbye to his colleague. The grin on his face reminds her of Missandei’s, both playful and soft, and the thought warms her up a little. Looking at his profile, she notices his well-defined jaw, the black locks of his hair tied up in a small bun at the back of his head, and she can’t help but think that her best friend sort of has a point – he _is_ attractive, indeed. 

He turns to her, and he looks slightly surprised at her presence. 

“Uhm, hey,” she says, unsure. A strange vibration goes through her body as he stares at her with incredible dark eyes. 

“Hey.”

Dany clears her throat, “I’d like to order one more tea latte for me and a caramel macchiato for my friend.”

“Sure. I’ll put your name on both?”

“Yes,” she states. Then, with an outburst of inexplicable fondness, she adds, “Thank you, Jon.” 

The look he gives her makes her heart skip a beat— or six— but she ignores it when she goes back to the table. 

* * *

He’s cleaning up a table near hers when he hears Dany’s friend announcing that she’s going to leave. 

“Should I wait for you for dinner?” she asks Dany.

“No, don’t worry. I’ll stay here a little longer.” 

They hug goodbye, the brunette offering a small wave at Jon before going out.

He waits for Dany to take out her usual glass container with her self-prepared dinner, but Jon can’t help but notice the nervous tapping of her fingers as she takes a forkful of salad, eyes still stuck on the laptop’s screen. 

Despite her back maintaining its straight pose, he sees her shifting in her seat continuously, her left leg unable to stop bouncing. There’s no other person in the world, Jon thinks, who showcases the effects of extra theine in such an adorable way. 

Indeed, he has seen her this nervous other times in the past, each time after she had consumed more than her daily dose of tea. But Jon is no one to give her a lecture about the side effects of excessive theine besides, he doesn’t often get to see her out of her usual composure, and he has to admit he kinda likes it.

He lets her finish eating, then, in a fit of chivalry, he gathers all his courage and walks to her. 

Daenerys, too focused on her papers, barely sees him coming. She notices his presence when he’s only a meter away from her and as she spots the mug he’s offering her, her expression grows confused. 

She looks at him, quizzically, but stays silent, waiting for an explanation.

Jon smiles, his hand still stretched forward. “Honey and milk.” 

“What?”

“It helps calm you down,” he explains. Jon rests the mug on the table, inviting her to take a sip with a nod. “I think you overdid it with the tea today.” 

Her face is statuary for a minute, as if she’s studying him. Her eyes are tired but fixed on his, like she’s seeing through to his soul. With just that one single look, his courage seems forgotten behind the counter. 

Then, she finally sighs. “Are you saying that because of the bouncing leg or the tapping fingers?” 

“The twitching eye.” He grins. “But yes, those were close seconds as hints.” 

Her shoulders relax a bit, and then, to both their surprise, she _laughs._ He’s never seen her laugh before. She smiles, yes— not as often as he would like, but she does. He thought nothing could compare with the lightness in her smile and yet, here’s the competition. 

Jon feels his heart grow so soft that he has to fight the impulse of hugging her, even more so when she takes a sip from the mug and her eyes slowly close in pleasure, letting out a soft moan. 

“I needed this, thank you,” she breathes out in relief. Then adds, “How much?”

He takes a while to understand she means payment. “Oh that’s on the house, of course.” 

“You sure?” she asks in disbelief.

“Of course. You didn’t ask and besides, it’s my pleasure.” 

Is she _blushing?_ Nothing in her expression gives any kind of emotion away, though the shade of her cheeks tells him she might have appreciated his choice of words. 

“Well, it was very nice of you. Thank you again.” 

He beams at her. “It’s no problem.” 

Dany looks around her. She’s the only one left in the café and the sun had set a while ago. “Are you closing?” 

Jon checks his watch. “In fifteen minutes.” 

“Can I stay?” Her voice is tentative. “I just need to reread a couple of pages.” 

He wants to keep it cool, he really does. But his chest swells with the feeling of fondness, heart beating so fast he finds it hard not to smile like an idiot. 

“For as long as you want,” he finally tells her. 

He goes back to cleaning up the tables, but out of the corner of his eye he glimpses the bright red of her cheeks, and that’s enough to erase all his doubts from minutes before. 

* * *

It’s a Friday night, and Dany and Missandei had just picked a movie to watch from Netflix’s endless list, the smell of popcorn inebriating them, filling them with anticipation. Missandei is a documentary type— she’ll watch literally any kind of documentary TV can offer; Dany, for her part, has always been more for horror films. 

They just recently found out their meeting point: historical movies. On one hand,historical movies are a sort of docu-fiction, which Missandei adores. On the other, Dany appreciates the crime and drama they usually lead to. 

It’s just when they’re about to select the ‘play movie’ option for “The Duchess” that her brother decides to call her. 

The Dragon Age theme song makes her jump in her seat. She gave both her brothers the same ringtone, as they did with her, considering how obsessed the three of them used to be with that video game when they were young. 

With a charge of fear, she hopes it’s not Viserys’s name on her screen, since the few rare calls she had with him in the past years always managed to ruin her mood. She actually hasn’t heard from her brother in a year, but she’s never complained once about that.

Instead, Dany reads Rhaegar’s name on her screen when she gets to her phone, sighing in relief. 

“Yes?” she says, picking up. 

“Hey little sister, how are you?” 

Dany rolls her eyes., “I’m good Rheggy, get to the point.” 

She loves her oldest brother, and she’s always seen him as a father figure to her, but she has to admit they barely speak over the phone. In fact, since Rhaegar moved to the North too for work, she usually sees him almost every Sunday afternoon at lunch. 

She hears Rhaegar laugh softly, and then he sighs, letting Dany know it can’t be anything good. “It’s about Dad.”

“What’s that.”

“I need to ask you for a favor, Dany… Next week I have to go to King’s Landing with the orchestra. I’ll only be there for a week,but I won’t be able to go to visit dad at the care home…”

“And of course you can’t ask Viserys.”

“Well, he’s in Pentos.” 

“Doesn’t justify him for refusing to help us with the nursing home fees,” she snaps. 

“Daenerys, not again.”

“I have things to do, Rhaegar! I plan to graduate with my masters in July and I’m working my _ass_ off to do that, while _he_ just sits in a damn chair in his office and does nothing but ordering people what to do instead of doing anything on his own!” she rages on. “That’s not justice.”

“I know, little sister.” Rhaegar’s tone goes soft, and Dany knows if he was here he would circle her shoulders with his big arm in comfort and calm her anger in a moment. “I’m asking you this because it’s a week, not longer. Because a week is the same amount of time it’d take me to convince Viserys to do that and I don’t have the time for it. I’m asking you this because you’re more caring that he is, and because Dad needs someone to take care of him. Besides, it’s not even for a _full_ week, you know. You just go there and visit him to keep him company, but he’s got his nurses, he’s in good hands. Just do it–“

“Don’t say for me,” she whines.

“For me.” Even through the phone she can figure his smirk in her mind. 

She pauses for a while. “I hate you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, clearly relieved. “Say hi to Missandei.”

“Yeah, sure. See you next week, Rheggy.” 

Missandei’s hand is on her back as soon as she hangs up.

“You okay?” Her small voice is almost enough to soothe her.

Dany smiles at her, nodding, and gives her a quick hug, a sign that she doesn’t feel like talking about family issues tonight. Then they go back to the couch and watch the umpteenth movie with Keira Knightley in a corset for an hour and a half.

* * *

“You’re late,” Arya points out when she spots him coming in a hurry. “Again.”

“Sorry, Arya,” he pants. “Had to close ten minutes later.”

His cousin grins, lifting up the bag on her shoulder. “Is it still about that girl you like?” 

Jon rolls his eyes. Among all her siblings. she’s always been the most deductive, and the fact that she’s the youngest girl doesn’t make a great combo. Not for his social life, at least. 

“Yes and no,” he sighs, not even trying to deny it. He hands Arya the helmet for the motorcycle and she just sits there comfortably, her look inciting him to go on. “She just likes to stay a little longer and now we kinda chat sometimes, that’s why I’ve been a few minutes late lately. I’m sorry.” He meets Arya’s eyes, earnest in his apology, but he doesn’t find any scolding look on her face. On the contrary, Arya’s expression is endearing as she watches him ramble, calm and composed as always. 

“Jon, it’s okay, I’m not mad at you... I’m mad at _her_.” Her tone turns from soft to pissed so fast Jon suddenly blinks in shock. “She better have a better reason than studying to leave the café every day at the very last minute.” 

“Stop sneering,” he snaps at her as he catches her fierce look, before joining his cousin on the motorcycle. 

Arya chuckles. “I’m serious, though. Feels kinda disrespectful to me.” 

“It was my decision to close the café this late, and she does respect the schedule. Besides, it’s not that she doesn’t care about me having to close late, she’s just … she really seems to care for what she does,” Jon tries to explain. He pictures Daenerys in his head, her silver cascade of hair creating a curtain over her face all the time while focusing. “I’ve never seen anyone that dedicated,” he states finally.

“Okay, If you say so.”

They exchange a knowing look through the rear-view mirror before he starts the motorcycle, and even the remote thought that Arya might like Daenerys makes his heart melt with emotion. 

“Will you stay for dinner?” Arya has to shout to ask him because of the howling of the wind. 

“Isn’t it late for dinner?”

“Maybe… It’s not too late for cake, though, right?” 

“Well, as long as Catelyn didn’t make it, all right.” He loves his aunt, but she and the stove are just two worlds apart. 

“Nope, Sansa made it.”

“Aye, I’m in then!” 

Arya howls with joy behind him, hugging him tight around the waist as he easily drives to the Stark house like his own moto knew the path by heart itself.

* * *

He barely sees her the following week. 

Jon’s gotten so used to her presence that he’s learned to associate certain parts of the day with her. It’s like when you’re little, and you watch cartoons on TV so much that you know what hour of the day is depending on the cartoon running. 

Everything seems banal without her. There’s no one ordering tea, which makes sense since it’s a coffee shop, but also it doesn’t, because it means she’s not there. He has no one to focus his attention on during his downtime. No one to keep him company after dinner time, an extra hour spent alone in the solitude of the café. Only when the clock strikes nine, like thunder in his mind, he realizes he hasn’t stopped thinking about her the whole day. 

So Jon shouldn’t really be that shaken at the jump of his heart when she crosses the entrance of the coffee shop that day.

“Long time no see,” he greets her.

Dany smiles at him, but it doesn’t really reach her eyes, a shade of sadness hidden behind them. Even though he knows she’s not a smiley person by now, she’s never really looked this broken before either. She’s always so fierce, so resolute that whatever trouble she might’ve gone through, it never filtered through the daring she constantly wears like a crown. 

Today, though, he can see it. The mask of fiercess doesn’t manage to cover it all. 

“Thought it would’ve been nice to disappear for a day or two. So you wouldn’t have to deal with the theine addicted anymore.” 

His face softens. “I’ve grown used to her.” 

And maybe from the tenderness in his tone, or the honesty in his eyes, she looks down, the corner of her mouth turned upright, revealing her pretty dimples. 

Jon prepares her tea, and when she comes to take it afterwards, her hand leaves a ghost of a touch over his as he hands her the cup. Their eyes lock for a second, almost imperceptible to anyone else but them, and maybe it’s just a trick of his imagination, but Jon doesn’t see the sorrow in her gaze anymore. 

* * *

[19:06] Rhaegar : Everything’s OK?

[19:10] Dany : Fine, I’m at the coffee shop, studying. 

[19:12] Rhaegar : You saw dad today?

[19:13] Dany : How did you know?

[19:13] Rhaegar : doesn’t matter.

[19:13] Rhaegar : How is he

[19:20] Dany : The same…

[19:21] Rhaegar : Did he hurt you?

[19:25] Dany : No, Rheg, don’t worry 

[19:26] Dany : Just a lot of shouting.

[19:32] Rhaegar : I’m sorry, Dany…

[19:33] Dany : It’s okay

[19:34] Dany : What time does the show start?

[19:35] Rhaegar : in twenty minutes or so

[19:36] Dany : Go get ready then, dumbass.

[19:36] Rhaegar : I love you too, little sis.

[19:38] Rhaegar : Call you tomorrow. Bye

[19:40] Dany : Okay, good luck Rheg.

Daenerys sighs and turns her phone offline.

It’s a reflex she acquired through the years, every time she got a text related to her dad. The doctors diagnosed him with the illness when she was just a child, but soon after that she found out it wouldn’t be about a gradual improvement. There were just good days and bad days, in no particular order and with no particular frequency. That’s how schizophrenia worked. 

So on the bad days she would receive a text, warning her about her father’s recent breakdown, and then another text asking her to come over for “family therapy,” then one call from the nurse who reminded her not to bring anything sharp into the care house. Then she would receive the email from the doctor with the new prescription to buy.

Until one day, during one of her father’s bad days, Dany had her own terrible one. 

It was an ordinary Tuesday night, and her phone wouldn’t stop beeping, when she had her first anxiety attack. It was so violent and unexpected that she was petrified, her sight blurry for way too much time. The only thing that had kept her grounded had been Missandei’s voice, telling her over and over again to breath, that everything would be fine, her friend’s words slow and tender and slightly shaky, because maybe even she was just as scared as Dany was.

It doesn't happen frequently, and by now she has learned how to control it. Keeping her phone shut off for a while is just the easiest and most selfish way she knows of preventing it. 

Dany tries to focus back on her Cognitive Behavioral Therapy essay she has to include in her thesis, but the memory in her head is so frustratingly vivid that she has to shut the laptop closed and put it aside for a moment. 

The clock strikes eight. A kid enters the café and asks Jon for two custard tarts. 

“Oh, and Arya asked me to tell you to bring her an English muffin afterwards!” the kid says, heading to the exit. 

Jon laughs. “All right, but I won’t be responsible for any of her sugar values, though.” 

“Dunno what that means but I’ll tell her so. Bye Jon!” 

The boy rushes out, leaving Jon still chuckling. He hasn’t stopped yet when his gaze slowly moves from the door to her, and then his expression changes. It’s like he just realized she was still there and had witnessed the whole scene. Dany notices with a certain curiosity how fast his cheeks redden, the way the corners of his mouth lower from the recent laughter to gape at her, embarrassed, without realizing herself that she’s been smiling in amusement the whole time too.

“My cousin,” he blurts out from nothing. “I mean, not him. Arya. Arya’s my cousin.” 

She watches him shift awkwardly from one leg to the other and her first impulse is to run to him, to hug him and finally have physical proof of how much warmth he seems to release. 

“Oh.” Dany grins, finding his discomfort incredibly cute. “A gluttonous girl is she.” 

“Well, at least this time she asked through a mate and not by pointing a fucking sword at me– “ He stops abruptly. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Dany giggles. “She seems lovely.” 

He joins her with a nervous laugh, and whatever memory had troubled her mind before is suddenly gone. 

When he goes back to cleaning Dany checks her bag to take her dinner out. She’s not particularly hungry today, but she also knows that is just a symptom of stress, and by now she’s learned to force herself into eating at least three times a day. 

But when her hand rummages in the bag, she finds no glass box. 

“Shit.”

The word comes out louder than she expected it to. 

Jon turns to her. “What happened?” 

“Forgot my dinner,” Dany whines, her head falling dramatically on her crossed arms over the table. 

“Uhm, you want a croissant?” 

She peeks at him from her arms and throws him a scolding look, before hiding her face back with a groan of frustration. 

She hears Jon chuckle softly and Daenerys admits it must be quite a funny scene to watch from outside – seeing the composed girl acting like a starving child. 

“We could order pizza, if you’d like.” 

His voice is soft and tentative, and it makes her chest twinge for some reason. At that, she slowly raises her head up and looks at him. He hadn’t said anything particularly emotional; it was no love declaration or romantic flirt, it never is. And yet, Jon always manages to make her feel so warm inside, so _wanted_ in such a pure way, through small simple gestures like an invitation to get take out. 

“Yeah, we could,” she whispers, as if she was accepting something way more intimate than a pizza. “You sure it’s all right for you?”

“Of course , Dany.” He smiles sincerely, always so sincere, as she struggles to hold his gaze. “What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Uhm, pepperoni.” 

“A light one.”

“Request to add the spicy oil too, if they have it.”

“You kidding?”

“I’m a southern girl, I love spicy food.”

“You’ll breathe fire by the end of the night.”

“Well, my dad always called me his little dragon when I was a kid, it’s about time that happened.”

“Oh my god, his little dragon! So cute.”

“Oh shut up! Hurry up, I’m getting hungry.”

“Aye, your grace. I’ll take the mushrooms.”

“Boring.”

“ _Classy._ ” 

“Whatever.”

“‘Kay, I’m calling.”

He dials the number and makes the order, specifying the spicy oil as she requested. He gives the address, the name and asks what time approximately they would deliver.

“Okay,” Jon says after hanging up. “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Excellent. Thanks for ordering.” 

“It’s no problem.” He walks towards her and uncertain, he sits at her table. “So, southern girl?”

“Mmh mmh.”

“Where are you from, if I may ask?”

“Pentos. You know it?”

“Only by name, never been there.”

She shrugs. “It’s pretty. Nothing special… there’s the bay, a beautiful sea, and the houses are all made from red brick. It’s big; not as big as the North, but bigger than the other Free Lands, and it’s probably the most populated too. You can go around the city and smell a thousand different perfumes of flowers and spices, and people always smile at you, even when there’s little to smile for. In summertime the weather is awful, just too hot, so you see the kids playing half naked in the streets, and people get tanned easily— no one ever burns from the sun, always getting the right golden shade of brown and the smell of the beach. In winter it’s never cold. I saw snow for the first time here when I moved in, but in Pentos there are constant storms, which I actually like. I used to spend hours awake staring at the dance of thunderclouds above the sea from my balcony. It kinda relaxes me.”

The stream of memories stops when she notices the look on Jon’s face. He stares at her, mesmerized, his pink mouth slightly open, eyes fixed on hers in fascination, and she can’t stand to hold his gaze when there’s so much awe in his expression. 

“What?” she breathes out.

He shrugs. “Seems pretty special to me.”

From the earnestness in his eyes, she doesn’t know if they’re still talking about her hometown. 

Daenerys has to swallow down a sigh of relief when she hears the knock at the door, saving her from struggling to find a decent answer without mumbling like an idiot. 

Jon gives her one last look before opening up the door and taking the delivery. 

“Here’s yours.” He hands her the pepperoni pizza. 

“Thanks.”

She waits for him to unfold his pizza and they start eating. 

“So why did you move here?” he asks, taking a bite.

“My father needed medical care and the doctors said Pentos weather wouldn’t be the best for him. They suggested the North— besides, they say the best mental sanitary services of all Westeros are here. Well, second only to King’s Landing, maybe,” she explains. “So my dad had to come here for care, my eldest brother had found a job as an Orchestra director, and I moved in with him and started high school. I recently moved into my own place with my roommate.” 

“I’m sorry for your father.” There’s no pity in his look, only sincere sorrow, which Dany really appreciates. Dany hates pity. 

She nods in gratitude. 

“What high school did you attend?” he asks.

“Thenn High School. You?”

“Ah, private school. I went to the Wall.” 

“Well that’s a good one too, I hear.” 

“Lacking of ladies, but great for education overall, yes.”

“And afterwards you started this job?” Dany asks, picking up another slice.

“Not really. I finished high school and then I did a couple of years or so in voluntary mission with The Night’s Watch organization. It was about helping homeless people for health, economy and family conditions, and I loved it. But then my mum lost her job and I had to come back to help her, so I started working in this café, which back then belonged to Mr. Davos. I worked for him for years, then he retired and left it to me, so I started my own business with Samwell, my best friend. And here we are, co-working. And my mum has been working as a nurse for over a year now.” 

“I’m happy for you.” She smiles at him. “What about your dad?”

Jon’s eyes sadden and Dany regrets her question immediately. “Never knew him.”

“I’m sorry…” 

“It’s okay.” He shrugs, but doesn’t meet her eyes. “And your mum?”

“She died.”

“Oh. I… Dany–“ 

“I understand you,” she cuts him off abruptly. “I didn’t know her either because she died by giving me birth. I understand you.” 

Dany has trained herself over the years to keep her face impassible every time she has to talk about her parents. This time, though, she feels naked under Jon’s honest eyes, the way she feels connected to him at every word she says. And that’s why she wants to underline it, the connection. All her life she’s been looking for someone who could understand her, understand her _pain_. She just wants him to feel the same way.

The smile he gives her this time is a little sadder. “Thank you, Dany.”

Sadness doesn’t fit him, she decides. He’s so pretty, and the harmony in his traits and everything that he releases seems meant to cherish people, to make them feel welcomed. In the simplest of thoughts, Dany realizes that the last thing she wants is to make him feel sad, like the naive fear of ruining a beautiful flower if she only stepped too close to it. 

“Maybe we have more things in common than we thought, Jon…?” 

“Snow.” He beams. “Jon Snow.” 

“Jon Snow,” she repeats, tasting the sound of the name in her mouth. 

“Daenerys Targaryen,” she then adds with a smile, lifting her chin only a bit, like she is so used to whenever she introduces herself.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Daenerys Targaryen.” He closes the box of the pizza he’s just finished. “Can I still call you Dany?”

She laughs softly. “Only my brothers and my roommate call me that but sure, you can call me Dany.”

“Nice.” He checks his watch and cringes. “I’m afraid I have to go, my cousin must be waiting for me.”

“Arya?” 

“Aye,” he says. “She likes to threaten me a lot every time I come late. And the fact that her brother is a policeman and her sister is studying law doesn’t really help my cause.” 

Daenerys bursts into laughter. “She knows better.” She stands up and walks toward the exit with him.“So you don’t have siblings?”

“Nope, I’m an only child. But I have four cousins and we all grew up together like siblings. Besides my mum and her brother, Uncle Ned, are very close too, so we really got very fond of one another while growing up.”

Dany nods. “That’s really nice.”

They stop in front of the coffee shop. Dany waits for him to lock the door and set the alarm, before he turns around to face her. 

His look is hesitant, as if he wants to say more, to _do_ more. Jon bites his lower lip, one hand in his pocket and the other playing nervously with his keys. 

Dany just stays there, her head tilted to one side in a wait for a first move. 

“So,” he finally speaks. “See you tomorrow?” 

Her heart speeds up. She’s about to answer with a loud “ _yes,”_ the corners of her mouth already forming a smile, when Rhaegar’s words suddenly echo in her head like a nightmare. The smile soon turns into a grimace. 

“More likely in a couple of days… I have uhm, family issues.” She looks away from him.

“It’s okay, you’ll find me here.” 

Dany hadn’t paid attention to how close they are, doesn’t know how that happened. He had taken a step forward, but she doesn’t recall doing the same, and yet… He’s so close she could just stretch out a hand and grab him by the collar of that stupid leather jacket of his to pull him into a kiss, if she wanted. 

Then Jon leans forward, insecure, and his lips touch her cheek so gently she’s not sure that it actually happened. 

“Goodnight, Dany.”

Dany exhales to speak, and then realizes she had been holding her breath until now. 

“Goodnight, Jon Snow.”

* * *

“So it was a date,” Sansa states for the second time as he finishes telling his cousins about last night’s events. Arya nods vigorously at her sister’s affirmation. 

“It was _not_ ,” Jon sighs, collapsing on the couch. “We just had dinner.” 

“Alone. At night. And almost kissed,” Arya points out. 

Jon groans in frustration. It’s in moments like these that he regrets the old times when they were little and Arya and Sansa could barely stand each other. Then throughout the years, they had developed a sort of symbiotic relationship, more similar to a partnership than a sisterhood that he can’t really explain— even with how well he and Robb get along, their bond was never that type of connection. Even less with Bran, too young for him to bond with that way. Maybe Sansa and Arya’s relationship can be explained by the gap between their ages, or maybe because women’s solidarity feels somehow stronger, he’s not sure.

Point is, now they’re two beautiful young women and whenever there’s an occasion to talk his ass out, he can bet that they will. 

“I always feel like I’m on trial when I have to discuss anything with you two,” he snaps, instead of replying to Arya.

The girls exchange an amused look, like a sign of mutual approval for doing their job just fine. 

“Look, I don’t know this girl,” Sansa starts, calm. “From what you told us, she doesn’t seem indifferent to you. Or at least she enjoys your company, which, for someone who’s used to spending her days alone in a coffee shop studying, is for now the best we can get.” 

“This is not the motivational speech I expected.”

“ _But_ ,” she continues, “the fact that she doesn’t give much away doesn’t mean she’s not able to feel. Sometimes people just need time.”

“To feel?” 

“To _trust,”_ Sansa corrects him. “If she’s apparently cold and yet it seems like she’s somewhat warming up to you, that means something. But she might be afraid of letting her walls down.” 

“So that’s what I have to do? Let her walls go down?” Jon’s really trying to keep up with the metaphors.

Sansa cringes a bit. “The walls a person builds around themselves aren’t necessarily bad,” she says, more to herself than to Jon. When Sansa lifts her head up from the ground and looks at him, her eyes are fierce. “Sometimes those walls are comfortable, and people just expect some miracle to happen by smashing them down, making it all exposed, without realizing that the purest, simplest and yet enormous thing one could do to approach her would be to build those walls up _together_.” She pauses. “You understand?”

“Yeah,” Jon whispers. “I hope I do.”

Then Arya stands up, only to come sit next to him, patting his shoulder. “And even if you do that, you’ll still need our approval.”

Jon chuckles. “And then you ask me why I’m still single.”

“Yes, keep blaming us, brother,” Sansa says, heading to her room. But before she does so, Sansa meets his eyes and gives him a sad smile, followed by a look full of hope that someone could receive better treatment than she did.

* * *

It’s been raining the whole day. 

The storm had started early in the afternoon and it just hasn’t seemed to calm down. Jon inevitably recalls Dany’s words, when she told him of how she loved storms when she was in Pentos. Suddenly the imagine of that little girl, half bronzed skin half hair, with eyes bigger than herself looking at the thunder and lighting in fascination, while the other kids run scared to their parents, makes his heart warm enough to handle the storm.

Daenerys enters the café a few minutes after the end of Sam’s shift. She’s wearing a crimson high waisted skirt and a black long sleeved top tucked inside of it, that hugs all her curves so perfectly that it makes Jon sweat, despite the weather.

“Hi,” she greets him. Her smile is kind but she looks exhausted, her face pale and with light bags appearing under her beautiful eyes, like she hadn’t slept all night.

“Hi!” he responds with a wide smile. “How are you?”

Dany just shrugs. “I’m just very _very_ happy that the week is over.” 

Jon laughs and starts preparing her tea. “I think you might be the only one who enjoys Mondays.” 

“You know, depends on how you spend your weekend.” 

She looks down as she says so, and his first urge is to cup her cheek to comfort her. He just wants to hold her and take care of her and, for some instinctual, overprotective reason, he can’t stand the sight of her being this _wrecked_. Not that she shows it much, anyway, and if he asked, Jon doubts she would confide in him at all.

That aura of mystery is the first thing that had attracted Jon so much the first time he saw her, and now the same dark aura seems to raise a wall between her and… well, everyone. 

And that’s when Sansa’s words click to him.

“Maybe next weekend we can spend it together,” he blurts out in one breath. 

Dany’s eyes go wide, her hand paralyzed on the cup of tea he had just handed her.

“I mean, if you… you know, I can’t assure you it’ll go better than last weekend for you, but, uhm, I’ll try?” he stutters, one hand coming to scratch his head nervously.

She holds his gaze and says nothing for a while. Jon thinks she might be trying to find a way to turn his invite down without hurting his feelings, but her expression is unreadable, as if she was mentally going through a list of pros and cons that would be involved in going out with him. 

Despite her mask of detachment, Jon can’t help but be absolutely struck by her beauty, with her huge blue eyes fixed on his, the softness of her cheeks framed by one single lock of silver hair falling from her braided bun. 

Finally, her full mouth, painted in dark red, trembles almost imperceptibly. She bites at her lower lip, as if to stop herself from giving away another hint of emotion, and when she speaks her voice is forcibly calm, like she has trained it to be that way over the years.

“Jon… I don’t know. It’s just not–“

“It’s okay,” he interrupts her, his heart screaming. “Don’t worry.”

“Let me just…”

“Dany, it’s fine.” He has to keep his hands busy, he has to do something so that he doesn’t meet her eyes. Jon tries to keep his voice cool, like it’s not a big deal that the girl he’s been dreaming of forever has just rejected him.

Dany looks slightly shocked by his reaction, her eyes narrowing in confusion, and she keeps trying to give him an explanation, but the last thing he wants is to be given a full lecture on how he _clearly_ misread the signals and how she’s too busy to find a gap in her social life schedule for him. 

Or maybe she’s already with someone. How stupid of him not to consider the most basic of options. She’s beyond gorgeous, as well as smart— what made him think that she might be single? Well, she’s never mentioned anyone to him, but after all, he had only started talking to her a couple of weeks ago. 

“Excuse me?” 

An annoyed voice behind Daenerys calls him, and for the first time, Jon is glad for the interruption. 

Without a word more, Dany is forced to move aside, her apologetic look still aimed at him as he tries with all his energy to avoid it – avoid the pity. He throws her one last smile of dismissal before he focuses on the new client, and out of the corner of his eye, he glimpses her tiny figure walking away and finding an empty table, alone. 

* * *

She can’t focus. Dany is sure the crowd of the café has nothing to do with it, though. 

Mondays have always had the coffee shop full, both of students coming from the departments nearby or of workers starting off the week with anything but excitement. 

There’s a constant coming and going of people through the corridor, but her eyes keep flickering from her laptop to Jon’s figure. She watches him smiling politely at every client, never stopping for a minute to rest for hours by now, but he doesn’t show a single sign of stress. 

Dany studies the curve of his back, the way his muscles contract when he’s making drinks, the sparkle in his dark brown eyes as he greets and welcomes new people, or the frown that pulls at his mouth with every order he takes, focusing. He’s _so_ pretty. She has dated taller and tougher boys before, but none of them had Jon’s same regality that he wears with such nonchalance, fooling everyone into thinking it’s something that comes effortlessly. 

He’s one of a kind, Dany has to admit. For the first time she’s attracted to someone because of the strength of heart rather than the body’s. 

So really, it doesn’t take her long to realize that she had completely _fucked up_.

Jon’s invite was unexpected, in all honesty. Dany has seen the way he looks at her, but after all the love failures she’s had in the past, she now struggles to understand men’s intentions. It’s like she’s been stabbed in the heart so many times that she’s not able to recognize a rose anymore, whenever she’s offered one. 

And for sure, the appointment for family therapy on Saturday morning, after her father’s upteempth wrath crisis, doesn’t really help her clear her mind. 

Before this, every time she found herself staring at him she’d always hoped he wouldn’t catch her eye, always peeking behind people or her laptop. But right now, the only thing Dany wants is to meet his eyes, have some sort of eye contact just to be sure he _knows_ it’s not about him, that her life is a mess and just the thought of dragging him into it with her makes her feel guilty, already. 

She’s always been good at keeping her distance, so why is she finding it so obnoxiously hard with him? 

With a frustrated huff, Dany stands up, her laptop on standby for half an hour by now, and she walks to the counter, trying to keep her composure, despite her trembling hands. 

Jon doesn’t spot her immediately, too busy with the line of clients in front of her, half of whom, Dany notices, are freshman girls taking their incredibly sweet time to make a decision— it’s like they have to choose which Avenger to date instead of pick out a coffee. Jon’s exasperated face gives her way too much satisfaction.

He’s about to roll his eyes for the third time in a minute when he notices her presence in the line. His expression suddenly shifts from pure annoyance to surprise, then it becomes affection, his eyes softening at once at the sight of her. 

Dany gives him a small smile, a hint of apology for before. Jon looks at her, a strange look on his face, like he’s having an inner battle in his mind. With a last glance at the girls in front of her, he dismisses them with a glacial “Girls, take your time to decide, I’ll serve the others in the meanwhile, okay?” 

Dany almost chokes in her attempt to restrain from laughing at their disappointment. The girls look so outraged she feels the urge to pat them in comfort. 

“Hey, you want a second tea?” he asks her when it’s her turn. 

“Yeah.” She smiles. “If you’re too busy I can wait, though,” Dany adds, seeing the line of people increasing. 

He throws a glance towards the line himself and with a pained look, he says, “Just wait here for a minute. I’m finishing these orders and I’ll be right back.” 

“Okay.” 

He takes four orders in one time, all of them for regular coffees, so it doesn’t take much to get those out of the way. Ten minutes later he’s boiling the water for her tea and when he gives it to her, Dany feels a rush of warmth at the sight of a little flame drawn with milk on top of her drink. 

“That’s for the wait,” he grins, eyes visibly tired but endearing at the same time as they meet hers. “Careful, it’s hot.”

She smiles. “Thank you so much.” 

Dany’s just taken the mug, pausing just a moment to stare back at Jon, as if it is impossible to look anywhere else. For an eternal minute, time stops around them.

Then a sudden blow pulls her out of balance; it takes her by such surprise that she stumbles violently with a gasp. She recognizes the echoes of girly giggles from behind her, but Dany’s too focused on the spilled hot liquid on her shirt to pay attention on anyone else. 

Everything happens fast. The freshman girls approach her to apologize, but they don’t get any closer to her because suddenly they’re pushed away by one big arm, and Jon is immediately in front of her. 

She follows his panicked look and notices he’s staring at the wet spot on her belly like it’s just caught fire. 

“Dany! Dany… does it hurt?” he asks with a shaky voice.

“N–no, it’s fine.”

Maybe it’s the insecure tone of her voice, or maybe it’s because she looks just as shocked as he does— either way, Jon doesn’t hesitate and pulls her to the loo by the hand. 

In a hurry, he smashes the door behind them and starts rummaging through the shelves of the ice-colored bathroom, searching in the drawers until he takes a first-aid kit out and opens it. 

“Jon, really, I’m not hurt.” 

“There should be an ointment for treating burns, I’m sure.” He rummages in the case with trembling hands. “Here it is!” 

Dany just stands there and watches him take a little tube out and a swab, his eyes carefully avoiding hers. She’s suddenly taken aback when he steps forward. He comes to stand in front of her, and without warning, lifts the hem of her top. 

Dany has to stifle a gasp at the feeling of his cold knuckles against her skin, and there’s all sorts of emotions mixed inside her right now, from the frustration and urge to close the distance between them, to the annoyance of being partly undressed for completely different reasons than the ones in her mind. 

Complaints aside, she helps him keep her shirt up so that he can treat her easier, but when his eyes land on her bare skin, Jon freezes instantly. Dany follows his look in curiosity and her eyes widen as well when she looks at her own belly.

Her skin, still damp from the wet shirt she had on, is pale and immaculate as if nothing ever happened. No sign of a burn, not a single bubble or bright red spot shows up on it.

“How’s… how is that even possible,” Jon manages to whisper. 

“I don’t know,” Dany replies simply. 

He lifts his head, eyes wide and his hand still comfortably resting on her side. “It was _boiling_ water. Very hot tea just spilled on you and you’re showing no sign of it.”

She shrugs, shifting a little bit to rest on the sink behind her. “I told you it didn’t hurt.”

Jon’s eyes lock on hers. He stares at her so deeply it makes the air stop in her lungs and she can feel her knuckles turning white on the marble behind her to control the instinct of jumping on him. Her heart is beating so fast Dany is sure that if he only moved his hand a little higher on her ribs he would feel it too. 

He scans her face, taking her all in, and slowly Dany sees his cheeks changing color, as if he’s just processed their closeness, the feeling of his hand against her side and the urge of taking care of her he just had. 

Inevitably his eyes go back to her belly, his fingers moving to follow their lead. 

His thumb gently traces circles on her side; he caresses the softness of her skin, and the awe his look holds, like he just witnessed a miracle, makes her chest tighten with wanting. 

His hand moves to the left until he stops on the tattoo on her ribs, representing three small dragons flying, and he lingers on it, curious, a tender smile pulling at his lips before continuing his inspection. 

Every touch of his hand is enough to send shivers down her spine and she swears, no one has ever her on edge like she is now by only caressing her bloody stomach. 

There’s a wild sparkle in his eyes, something animalistic, and yet warm and controlled that it makes her wonder what would happen if he only let go. 

His eyes raise, but something shifts in them as they keep studying her, and Dany _knows_ he just caught a glimpse of the lace of her white bra peeking out of her shirt when he suddenly shakes his head harshly, cheeks turning bright red as he faces her in shock,the air around them filling up with tension. 

He takes a step backwards. Dany feels cold already. 

“S–Sorry,” he stutters. “I’ll leave the kit here if you need it. I gotta…” He points at the door and the message is clear. 

Jon rushes out, stumbling a bit on his feet as he does so. He leaves Dany with her top still lifted up, resting against the cold marble sink, and that shadow of hope slowly disappears as she watches the sun go down with it. 

* * *

She leaves the café one hour earlier that day, shouting a quick goodbye to him without even meeting his eyes. 

They don’t talk about the incident in the following days, and Jon limits himself to staring longingly at her in secret, like he became so used to doing before he fell in love with her. 

* * *

Daenerys is not into Jon, _at all_.

She tells herself that as she rides Daario in her bed— but then again, when she shuts her eyes to tune it all out, all she sees is Jon’s wild look fixed on her body in the coffee shop’s loo. 

And it’s _embarrassing_ how only that image is enough to make her come undone in an instant. Daario follows suit.

Dany collapses onto the bed, sweaty against the sheets that now smell of familiar sex and nothing more. 

She feels him shift beside her, coming closer to snuggle with her,his hand on her side, right above her dragon tattoos where Jon’s hand had touched her only a few days ago and–

“What are you thinking about?” Daario asks, his voice soft and slightly hoarse like it always is after sex. 

“My thesis,” she lies. 

She should feel guilty, she really _really_ should. Except she doesn’t. 

Daario huffs in laughter as his hand moves to caress her skin, stopping an inch below her breast that he’d marked with his mouth before.

“You need a break.” 

Dany shakes her head, eyes still on the ceiling. “I plan to graduate in three months and the results of my research are far from being ready.”

“How so?”

“My theories on my research haven’t been proved by anyone before. I’d be the first, but it takes twice the time.” 

She shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, turning her back to Daario. There’s something in his look she can’t stand, like a sort of expectation and adoration that make her uncomfortable. She does like his attentions, but the way he worships her… it confirms her idea about wanting him to remain only a lover. He just doesn’t fit, is not enough. 

His eyes are dark, but not dark enough.

He’s good at heart, but not good enough.

His smile doesn’t warm her enough.

She cares about him, but doesn’t love him. Not _enough._

“I know I’m not here to give you academic advice.” Daario’s voice halts her train of thought, his hand scratching her back gently. “And I’m surely no expert…”

She turns to him, waiting for him to go on.

Daario meets her eyes with a fire of challenge in his look, like he always does when he wants to provoke her. Dany used to like it back then, when he still looked like a tempting thing to try. 

He goes on. “But a scientific thesis with no scientific base? Doesn’t sound very valid to me.”

Well, it would be if the scientific base she requires didn’t depend on her father’s mental improvement.

Instead of retorting though, Daenerys pauses, her gaze turning icy – his hand stops moving. With her sheets still around her waist, Dany decides that she likes him better when he doesn’t talk. 

Slowly, she lies back down on the bed, his eyes stuck on hers, following her movements carefully. The moment her back touches the mattress he’s already on top of her. She lets him kiss her neck eagerly, his arms lifting her back slightly so she arches up to meet his hips.

She thinks of Jon’s lips between her legs when she comes, screaming, but this time not a single cell in her body regrets not feeling guilty about it.

* * *

Dinners with the full Stark family are an interesting event to witness. In the last few years, it’s become such a rare occurrence that every time aunt Catelyn finds out the whole family would be at dinner she starts preparing – or to better say, buying and heating up – lasagnas to celebrate. 

This night is one of those events: Arya has her training early in the afternoon, so Jon closes the café a little earlier too to join them for dinner, Bran seems less interested in keeping himself isolated in his room, Robb had just returned from King’s Landing, where he now works and lives with his wife Talisa, and says he will stay in the North for a week, and Sansa simply takes a seat between her sister and Robb with a wide smile. 

“I can’t believe you’re all here,” Catelyn chants, dropping a quick kiss on Ned’s cheek as she sits next to him. 

“Do you have to say _that_ exact sentence every time it happens, Mum?” Robb rolls his eyes, but he still smiles at his mother’s excitement. “You’ll start making feel guilty for living out of town.”

“Don’t. I got used to having a single room.” Bran has no filter whatsoever. 

“Which reminds me,” Arya interjects with a triumphant grin, “I have to make an announcement.”

Everyone looks at her. For some reason, whenever Arya announces something to her family, it usually involves a protest or a trip. 

“Oh no,” Ned whispers.

Arya stares at them, one by one in the eyes, before her grin turns into the biggest of smiles and she shouts, “I qualified for the fencing championship!” 

“Oh my god!”

“That’s amazing, Arya!” 

Jon hugs her right from his seat, and with a twinge of melancholy, realizes how much she’s grown up through these past years, his little Arya. She’s not the innocent girl of his childhood anymore, though her amount of courage hasn’t changed. She only gets stronger and braver every day and he couldn’t be prouder of her. 

“When are you gonna set off?” he asks, one arm still circling her back.

Arya’s expression of joy suddenly shifts into a grimace. Her eyes scan the table until they meet her father’s at the opposite side. “In a week,” she lets out tentatively. 

“What!?” Catelyn shouts.

“The first selection is in King’s Landing, then afterwards there will be the actual championship in Highgarden in August. Oh, mum, _please_ ,” she adds after noticing her mother’s look of disapproval.

Catelyn is about to retort, her mouth opening already in protest, but then Ned’s hand comes to cover hers. She turns to face him in a bit, and it doesn’t take long for them to reach a mutual agreement. With just one look, Ned and Catelyn Stark communicate their approval, first to each other, and then simultaneously turning to look at the youngest of their daughters, smiling. 

Arya’s face lights up at once. Then everyone laughs and she literally howls of joy, standing up to run towards her parents for a hug. 

For the first time in a while, there’s not just a reunion to celebrate that night. 

“We’ll see you soon, I hope.” Uncle Ned smiles at Jon and squeezes his shoulder in affection. 

“Of course, Uncle. I may consider moving in here for the week Arya will be out,” Jon says, amused. 

“Okay, not that much,” Catelyn interjects immediately with a playful grin. She hands Jon his cloak and gives him a quick hug to dismiss him. 

Sansa joins them in the foyer, her siblings already in their respective rooms.

“I’ll walk you downstairs,” she tells him, throwing him a knowing look. 

Ned hugs him tight and says him goodnight, and Jon and Sansa take the lift together. 

“So…” Sansa speaks once they’re out of the building, heading to the parking lot. “News?”

Jon sighs. “I might’ve fucked it up, Sansa.”

He updates her about the recent episode, careful to avoid the part where Daenerys accidentally _didn’t_ get burned. 

“And since then we’ve just… avoided eye contact and have barely spoken,” he concludes.

Sansa blinks for the first time since he started talking. “Why _on earth_ did you leave her in the loo?”

“I was panicking! I– I was trying to be respectful…” 

“By leaving her alone after undressing her?!” 

“Okay, putting it like that, it sounds much worse than what it was,” Jon snaps.

Sansa sighs heavily, running a hand through her ginger locks to comb her hair back. “Why didn’t you just talk to her afterwards?” 

Jon purses his lips, like he’s struggling to put his own thoughts in order. “I guess I didn’t know what to say. Or how to say it, maybe. I couldn’t just tell her that I was sorry and I didn’t mean to do anything more intimate than help treat her, ‘cause it’d be a lie.” 

Sansa rolls her eyes at that. “Couldn’t you just say a small, white lie to keep the girl, you idiot?” 

“Okay, I deserve that,” Jon laughs. “But at the same time, I freaked out because I realized I was doing something that maybe she didn’t want me to do. Not that there were objections from her but still… If something is ever going to happen between me and Dany, I want it to be a hundred percent consensual. After everything that happened to you…” he trails off, not knowing how much he can add about it. Sansa knows better than himself what she’s been through, and the fact he wasn’t able to stop it, to prevent it, still drives him crazy.

Sansa’s eyes soften. She takes his hand in hers and says, “You’re nothing like the men I was with. You understand, Jon? Nothing at all. You’re so good, and gentle ,and just… you care about people, even those you don’t know. Which can be an honorable side of you, or a really stupid one.” He smiles at that. “Whatever girl you’ll decide to give your heart to, she can consider herself the luckiest and most trustworthy person in the world.” 

Jon’s not used to compliments. Not when it comes to Sansa, anyway. That’s why he feels his smile getting a little teary already, incapable of not showing the enormous pride and affection he has for the beautiful, wise young woman she has become. 

“Thank you, Sansa.” 

She flashes him another smile, and with one last squeeze of his hand, she heads back to the entrance of the apartment.

“Jon,” she calls him before crossing the front threshold. Jon turns to her— her eyes are sweet when they meet his, her head slightly tilted on one side. 

“Stop blaming yourself for what happened to me.” 

“I–“

“Stop.”

He lets out a shaky breath. Her look doesn’t seem to be one that will take objections. That law school is training her damn well, he can tell.

He finally nods.

“Aye.”

And she smiles, somehow relieved.

“Good.”

* * *

She’s at Winterfell’s Café with Missandei, both girls absorbed in their respective topics, Dany reading an article about the influence of Preeclampsia in mental illness and Missandei translating a law document from French, when Dany’s phone lights up with an incoming call. 

She reads Daario’s name on the screen ,but instead of picking up, she locks her phone again and nonchalantly gets back to her article. 

Dany had hoped for her action to go unnoticed by her friend, but of course, nothing escapes Missandei’s vigilant watch. 

“You should tell him,” she says calmly, without even bothering to lift her head from the dictionary. 

“What?” Dany throws her an annoyed glance. 

“That you don’t like him that way.”

“He knows.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t know you like someone else.” 

“Would that change something?” 

Dany knows she’s given the wrong reply when Missandei finally looks away from her book and flashes a playful grin at her. 

“So you don’t deny it.”

Dany groans in frustration. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the one with a degree in Psychology.”

Missandei chuckles. “Don’t change topics.”

“The only topic I want to deal with is how pregnancy’s complications might lead to mental instability during adulthood,” Dany snaps, trying to keep her gaze as severe as possible.

At that, Missandei’s look changes at once, her dark eyes scolding her with just a glare. “You don’t have schizophrenia.” 

Dany looks away. She turns her focus back to the article, because it’s way easier than holding her friend’s look. Missandei is probably the person who knows her better than anyone else, and Dany is glad to have such a good friend, but it’s in moments like these that she’s not sure how she feels about that. Daenerys is so fond of her own mind that she doesn’t know how to react when it is so exposed, even if it’s with the most trustworthy person in her life. 

“I don’t want to hurt Daario,” she says finally, after a long pause.

Missandei nods. “We’ll find a way to make it alright.” 

Dany smiles at the use of the plural. 

“I think I’ll go in twenty minutes or so, Grey is coming over for dinner,” Missandei states, checking her watch. “You wanna join us?” 

“No, I’ll stay here a little longer, I have too much work to do. Besides, I have kale balls for dinner.” She winks, making Missandei laugh. “Thank you for the invite, though. And say hi to Grey from me.”

“Sure.” Missandei smiles warmly. 

A few minutes later Missandei leaves the café, kissing Dany on the forehead before standing up, like she always does in that protective way of hers. 

Dany hears her friend shouting goodbye to someone, her eyes following the direction of her voice and there’s Jon, waving at the brunette with a warm smile.

Dany is not fast enough to focus her attention back on her books when their eyes accidentally meet. It just takes Jon a slight turn of his head and suddenly his smile fades as he stares back at her. He has an expression she can’t quite read, which is _frustrating_. It’s like a mix of awe and surprise, as if they haven’t looked at each other for ages. Of course they have— they do every time she orders a tea. By now though, they’ve developed a whole range of looks that are theirs and theirs only, and that one in particular – so intimate and warm – she’s missed. 

Dany’s chest swells as she holds his look. 

A minute passes, or maybe an hour, she can’t tell. Then he’s back at taking orders and she rereads the ways to prevent schizophrenia for the third time. 

She doesn’t realize how late it is until the noise of the blinds shutting makes her jump slightly in her seat. Dany looks around and notices she’s the only one left in the coffee shop. 

Jon is focused on mopping and adjusting the tables, but barely pays attention to her, which Dany finds utterly frustrating— not that she’d ever admit it to anyone but herself. 

His face is so impassible and neutral, as if he’s not even struggling to not consider her.

So like a spoiled kid in desperate need of attention, she calls him. 

“Are you closing?” Dany asks tentatively with such a shy voice she had actually planned it to come out way more challenging.

Jon immediately turns to her. He takes a while to speak, like he’s having an internal fight over what to answer and how. 

“Aye,” he just says at the end, and her heart drops somewhere in her stomach as he turns his attention back to the cleaning. 

“Alright then,” she whispers, not even caring that he hears her this time.

She collects her stuff and slowly stands up. For the first time in a while, Daario doesn’t seem a bad plan for the night. Then again, a silent swear crosses her mind for realizing that she thinks so only because plan A failed. And Daario will never be her plan A. 

With a sigh that she hopes goes unnoticed, Dany walks out the door. 

Almost.

“Dany.”

She turns around so fast her neck cracks, but she couldn’t care less. 

Jon is already staring at her, his hand toying with his keys, like she’s witnessed him doing so many times before when nervous. 

“Uhm,” he starts. “Before you leave I… I just wanted to apologize. I guess.” 

_That_ is so not what she was expecting. 

“For what?” Dany asks, confused. 

He takes a few steps forward, uncertain. “Well, for the other day.” Her expression remains quizzical. “When I tried to treat your burn…” 

“Nonexistent.”

“I googled it.”

“You did?”

“Still have no clue.”

“It was nothing.”

“It was _weird._ ”

“Indeed.”

“And it didn’t hurt...”

“Not a bit.”

“You sure?”

“I can try again if you want.”

“Please, don’t.” 

They had gotten closer and closer with every reply, now standing right in front of each other in the middle of the corridor. Two opposite sides colliding only to form the perfect coin. 

“You would treat me again,” Dany whispers. He’s so close she doesn’t find the energy to speak louder.

“I didn’t treat you. I observed you.” Jon lets out a sigh, as if saying it were so much worse than thinking it. “I’m sorry.”

He looks at her straight in the eyes as he apologizes and Dany feels like her knees might crumble at any moment from the depth in his gaze. Jon truly looks mortified, _ashamed_ , for having watched her without permission. 

The other men… they never asked for permission. Drogo certainly didn’t, even Daario, for how chivalrous he might be, used to insist so much on her that she found herself exhausted by his advances. 

And then there’s Jon Snow here, apologizing for not having her permission. 

And then again, here she is, realizing he’s the only one she doesn’t care about having it.

Dany shakes her head. “I like when you observe me,” she simply says, taking one last step towards him. “I like when you look at me.”

 _The way you’re looking at me right now,_ she would like to add. 

A glint of epiphany appears in his eyes. They exchange a knowing look as she smiles at him, and then finally, _finally,_ Jon leans down to kiss her. 

The kiss is so slow it’s agony for her. Dany melts into it; after weeks of wondering about Jon’s lips, the feeling of them against her own drives her crazy. Impatient, she tries to deepen the kiss, make it more passionate, but Jon slows her down, controlling her eagerness with his mouth. She feels his lips turn upright in a smile against hers, and her heart might pierce her chest with the amount of emotion she feels. 

He cups her cheek with one hand, the other traveling down her side and playing with the hem of her grey dress in a tease. Dany’s body reacts at once; she drags herself closer until not an inch of space stands between them, her breasts pressed against his chest, and Jon inhales at the sensation of their closeness, his mouth still exploring hers. 

Dany’s arms come to circle his neck, one hand deep in his hair, the other on his neck to make sure his pulse is just as ridiculously rapid as hers.

(It is.) 

As she grabs his scalp a little harder Jon lets out a soft groan against her lips, which totally gets to her lower belly. Dany pulls away only to kiss his cheek, moving slowly to the side of his neck until she reaches his lobe and bites it. 

For good measure, he reacts by grabbing her ass and lifting her onto the table, making her gasp. He settles between her legs, both his hands on her thighs, sending shivers of excitement to her core. 

Jon leans forward and drops a peck to her lips, lingering only a bit as he slides his hands closer and deeper under her dress. 

When he pulls away, he stops only to look at her, his eyes darker than ever, illuminated only by the distant streetlights outside the window. 

Her heart hammers at the sight of so much awe and passion in his look for _her_. Dany can’t recall a time when she felt this desired and loved at the same time. 

“You’re…” he licks his lower lip, the one she recently bit and made redder than usual; he seems to be struggling to find the right word. “You’re _extraordinary_ ,” he finally states, but before she has the time to recollect all her senses to answer decently, Jon’s thumb presses softly against her clit, and Dany’s head falls on his shoulder with a moan. 

He keeps moving his fingers, adding one between her folds and pulling in and out of her slowly, setting a building rhythm with his hand. 

“Is this okay?” he asks, voice low and hoarse.

“Do I sound like it’s not okay?” Dany breaths out, in a miserable attempt of being sassy in such a situation. 

Jon chuckles, and after circling her clit one last time he pulls his fingers out. Dany immediately throws him a homicidal look of disapproval. He smiles at her, amused, and without looking away from her eyes, he brings his index in his mouth and sucks on it. 

“You’re a tease,” she whispers, shakily. 

“I just want to take my time.” Jon shrugs. Then his eyes move down her body, lingering on the curve of her breasts, the softness of her thighs, now naked under his palms, before they finally they focus back on her mouth. “I’ve waited so long for you.” 

Dany has to admit, his skills to shift from sexy to romantic in less than a minute are impressive. It’s a cocktail of emotions she’s so unused to she’s afraid to get drunk too fast with it and end up wasted. 

But when Jon pulls her back into a kiss and she tastes herself in it, like it’s the most natural thing she’s ever done, Dany thinks maybe it’s quite the opposite – that he could be the one to sober up her madness. 

She moans when he feels his thumbs tucking into both sides of her panties, and with no hesitation, Dany slightly lifts her bum and helps him get her underwear off. 

He stares at her longingly for a while, as if he’s deciding how to finish her first, and even though her dress is still fully on, Dany has never felt so naked under someone’s eyes.

He leans into her, his lips touching hers softly, and she tries to cup his cheek in order to kiss him harder. But Jon moves away again, gently nipping at her lower lip first, and slowly, with his eyes still on hers, he sinks to his knees. 

Dany watches him kneeling, dumbstruck in some sort of fascination as he carefully takes off her booties one by one, sets her legs on his shoulders and makes her gently slide forward on the wooden surface of the table.

“What are you doing?” Dany asks, breathless in anticipation.

He throws her a look. “I’m certainly not on my knees to pray, Dany.” 

She smiles, one hand moving to his cheek again, in such an endearing way that Dany wonders if she’s truly only known him for a month when it feels like it’s been a year, or maybe a decade. Her thumb caresses his mouth and Jon immediately leans over it, kissing her palm, then the inside of her thigh.

Dany’s hand automatically moves to his hair when his kisses reach her groin; she can feel his tongue on her skin, tracing a hot path to where she needs him the most. The moment he presses his tongue flat against her entrance and tastes her for the first time, the arm she’s using as support behind her gives up, her elbow hitting the table, but the pain is imperceptible in comparison to the waves of pleasure Jon is creating with his mouth. 

He keeps fucking her with his tongue, and Dany’s whines become embarrassingly loud with every movement of his lips. Dany feels tears forming in her eyes at how good and _right_ it feels, like he was born to fit to her and she to him. 

She screams his name a few minutes later as she comes. His mouth lingers against her folds to clean her for good before standing up, circling her waist to pull her into a hug and help her sit. 

She untangles herself from his arms only to catch his lips, this time taking the lead of the kiss and sliding her tongue into his mouth to taste herself in it, bodies still pressed so close, like they’re trying to feel the other’s hearts beating through their chests.

When they pull away at the same time, Dany recognizes herself in his eyes, where she sees the same astonishment, the same realization of having found the missing piece of an enormous mosaic they thought would’ve remained forever incomplete. 

Until them. 

* * *

The following day she walks into the coffee shop and he knows she’s there even before bothering to check the entrance. 

When their eyes meet there’s a whole new light in both their looks, a smile of complicity and familiarity that sets peace into his soul. 

No one would’ve ever guessed something had changed between them, save for Samwell, who keeps gaping at them in shock.

Today she looks way more elegant than the previous day, wearing a black sheath dress and heels, her hair half collected in a braid behind her head, half loose. The view takes his breath away instantly.

From the outside it might look just like an ordinary scene – the habitual customer grabbing her tea latte and the bartender politely handing it to her, before she takes a seat at the table.

Little would people know about the wide smile that forms on her face after she glances at the cup and reads the number phone on it.

* * *

At 6 P.M. , Dany is sitting outside the auditorium of her department, scanning the pages of her presentation without actually pausing on anything in particular, too tired to reread the same notes over and over again. 

Her lecture starts in an hour, a few people already having taken their seats in the room, only a couple of them familiar from photos she’s seen in books and manuals. 

She feels her palm sweating in anticipation, the papers useless in her hands as she looks at anything but those. Handling anxiety never was her forte. As long as she’s with people, she can control it, but when she’s alone, she feels like her mind will go off.

Jon would ease her nerves so easily, Dany just knows that. She envies his pragmatic approach to life, like he could fix any problem on his own and find the perfect compromise for both sides every time. He’s gentle and calm and so controlled, but at the same time Dany has seen how his look changes when he lets go, a primordial spirit that makes him go wild. She also wonders how many people can say they’ve witnessed both faces of his character. 

Without thinking about it twice, Dany picks up her phone and creates new a chat with the latest contact she saved. 

[18:11] Dany: I might have overdone it with the theine again. 

[18:17] Jon: I wonder who this is.

[18:17] Dany: I don't know, how many people did you give your number to today?

[18:18] Jon: I gave away no number. I taught teacups how to write and they betrayed me by giving personal info away.

[18:19] Dany: They already made a movie about that and it’s called the Beauty and The Beast.

[18:19] Jon: The Bartender and Theine Addicted sounds way better tho

[18:20] Dany: We’ll tell them

[18:23] Jon: anyway, you left earlier today

[18:24] Dany: I have to give a lecture at seminary in half an hour. I’m kinda nervous

[18:26] Jon: You’ll be just fine.. I’m sure about it

[18:27] Dany: Crossing fingers 

[18:30] Jon: You wanna come over my place for dinner?

Dany reads the message about five times, her heart increasing in speed at every word. 

[18:34] Dany: I finish at 20:30. You’re not at work?

[18:35] Jon: I can close a bit earlier. I don’t have to drive Arya home tonight, she’s out of town for a championship. 

[18:39] Dany: Okay then, I’ll get to the coffee shop when I’m done here.

[18:45] Jon: Sounds perfect. See you later, and you’re gonna be great, don’t worry.

[18:50] Dany: Thank you.

Dany adds a kissing emoji, which is so out of character for her, but his support means so much that a stupid emoji seems the best she can do to show gratitude through a chat. 

She puts her phone back in the bag and enters the auditorium with a professional smile pointed towards no one in particular in the audience. After positioning herself behind the desk, she sets the slides on the computer to start the presentation about topics none of the people sitting there know the personal relevance they have to her, and Dany tries not to think about it either as she introduces her thesis and shows her research. At least now the anxiety has faded away.

* * *

If his mother knew how fast he could mop when he wanted to, Jon is sure she would hire him to do that weekly at home, too. 

He finishes cleaning, almost bouncing on his feet with excitement, and when he shuts the door and spots her silver hair in the dark his heart skips a beat at once.

She beams at him when he’s close enough to see in the light, and he waves back before he realizes he hasn’t exactly planned how to behave once in front of her. How do you greet the girl you have feelings for and who you made come with the tip of your tongue no longer than twenty four hours ago? 

Unfortunately, there’s no time to figure it out.

“Hey,” she says, radiant.

“Hi,” Jon greets back, and in the end he opts to give her a lingering kiss on the cheek, his hand steady on her waist to keep her close. 

Dany doesn’t seem to mind— on the contrary, she settles comfortably into it and looks at him. 

“How was the seminar?” he asks, stepping back and walking her toward his moto. 

“Fine. I got some tough questions at the end, but nothing I wasn’t expecting. I think I handled it just fine,” she states with a shade of pride he suddenly feels attracted to. “What about you? How was it at work?”

Jon shrugs. “The same. Our accountant came to visit today and told us our business is going great, and suggested an investment for us, so we can improve the products’ quality. We just have to set up a meeting now.” 

“You also deal with the administration?” Dany arches her brows in surprise.

“Of course, I deal with everything about the coffee shop. Except for the actions’ recording; those are on Sam,” he explains.

They get to the parking lot and as they reach his moto, Jon takes out the black helmet usually wore by Arya and hands it to Dany.

“This should fit you well.”

Dany takes it without saying a word, a skeptical expression on his face.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I just… I’ve never ridden on a moto.” 

His eyes widen at the news. “You serious?”

“Don’t make that face.” Dany punches him softly in the shoulder. “It makes me regret telling you.”

“No, don’t be! I swear, I won’t go fast.”

Dany huffs, that fierce look back in the eyes. “I’m not afraid,” she states as she climbs on the moto confidently, and he tries so hard not to stare at the pale perfection of her thighs when her dress rides up in the process. “Don’t go easy on me, Jon Snow.”

He smirks, and joins her on the seat. “As you wish, your Grace.”

The ride home is silent, though every now and then he feels the ticklish touch of her long hair on his neck, or the small gasps she makes when he weaves among the cars, and he can’t help but speed up when her arms are so tight around his waist that his sight blurrs if he only focuses a bit too much on her embrace. 

“So?” Jon grins when she gives him back the helmet.

“Well, I gotta say,” she starts, visibly shaken but eyes full of excitement too. “You completely ruined the underground for me.”

He laughs and rests a hand on her lower back before walking her to the front door.

Dany crosses the entrance, her look curious as she studies the place with fascination. 

“It’s pretty.” She smiles. “It’s like the house version of Winterfell’s Café.” 

“That’s quite a comparison.” He chuckles. 

Jon’s never seen it that way, but thinking about it, the coffee shop and his house are pretty similar, starting from the wooden surfaces to the floor’s pale blue tiles, and the white chandelier’s lights reflect the numerous light bulbs hanging on the café’s ceiling. 

“Jon, is that you?” 

His mum’s voice comes from the bedroom, followed by a sequence of hurried steps and Jon internally swears; Dany freezes at his side.

“Jon–“ His mother comes into the light and her shocked expression at the view of the couple makes him cringe. “Oh.”

“Mum, weren’t you supposed to be out for dinner?” Jon hisses.

She looks down at herself, her pretty beige dress smoothing over her tiny figure. Her face is even prettier when she applies just the right amount of makeup, all shades of brown that match with the color of her eyes. 

“I didn’t dress up like this to have dinner at home, sweetheart,” she deadpans. “Indeed, I was about to leave.” Then her attention deviates to Dany’s figure, standing uncomfortably behind Jon. His mother narrows her eyes to study her, which is not very typical of her. She’s usually loving and cheerful with their guests, even the rare times Jon let her meet some girls. 

“Uhm Mum, this is Daenerys,” Jon introduces her, feeling a strange tension burning the air.

Dany takes a step forward to shake hands with his mother.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. …?

“Stark. But please, call me Lyanna.” 

Dany smiles politely. “It’s a pleasure.”

They stand one in front of the other and Jon can feel waves of tension between the two women, like they are digging into each other’s mind through a single exchange of names. 

“Pardon me Ms. Sta– Lyanna. If I may ask, have we already met somewhere?” Dany asks, breaking the silence, to everyone’s surprise. 

His mum seems taken aback by the question. She pauses a moment, as if she’s pondering the right answer, and then says, “I don’t think so, my dear. I would certainly remember a girl with such pretty hair.”

“Thank you,” Dany concedes, still unsure about that answer. “Still, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“If mum’s not at home she’s at work, so I doubt it, Dany,” Jon interjects, giving her a weak smile.

“I really have to go now, though maybe we can pick the conversation up another time.” Lyanna smiles at Dany, who just nods, smiling as well.

“Of course.”

“Jon, don’t leave the kitchen a mess,” his mother scolds him as she picks up her bag. “In the fridge there should be everything for dinner and please don’t cook frozen food with oil like last time.” 

“Oh my god, _Mum_.”

“It was really nice to meet you Daenerys. Have a lovely night, guys!”

“And you too,” Dany says, still laughing at Jon’s red face. “She’s lovely,” she adds, when Lyanna crosses the door behind her.

“I guess. It’s strange though, about the fact that you think you met her.” 

She looks as confused as he is, and shakes her head, clearly struggling to find a connection.

“I don’t know, she really looks familiar to me.” She frowns in an attempt to collect her memories. “You said she barely leaves home, except for work?”

“Aye.“

Dany’s expression gets quizzical. “Where does she work?”

“Mm, she’s a nurse at the Black Castle’s Residence.”

She freezes, petrified. Her face becomes pale like marble, eyes wide and blank, unblinking. 

“Is ev–“

“That’s where my dad is hospitalized,” she snaps, voice flat. 

“Oh.”

“I must’ve seen your mother at the nursing home. Makes sense.” She walks away towards the kitchen.

Jon’s not sure what to say. She looks statuary and emotionless, like every time she mentions her father, as if she has an inner switch to set on or off depending on the topic. He would never be able to show or not show emotions on command, but she does it like she’s been trained to. A person shouldn’t _decide_ what to feel, that’s just not how it works.

“You know you can let go with me, if you want to, right?” He gets closer to her, resting his hand on hers on the kitchen table. 

She doesn’t look up at him, but Jon glimpses a hint of smile, her shoulders slightly relaxing at his presence and maybe, he thinks, there’s still something involuntary left to her.

She nods. “I know. Not now, though,” she says in a small voice. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Jon breathes out, astonished that she’s requested permission for taking her time. “Whenever you want.” 

Her fingers tangle with his, and he’s too focused on the sight of their hands fitting together perfectly, one into the other, to react properly when she leans forward and kisses him.

Jon’s surprise makes her lips form a smile when they press against his, but it takes him just a moment to recover before he cradles her cheeks and deepens the kiss. 

She moans into his lips, her hands on his chest where he’s positive she can feel his pounding heart through the shirt, but he couldn’t care less. If he had been hesitant before, Jon now wants to make she isn’t ever unsure about his feelings for her. 

The kiss is not as passionate as the first they shared in the café, but in his way, it’s more intimate— not only because of his house, but also because of her release of nerves through the kiss, the trust she puts in him for making her feel better with so little. 

Dany separates from him after a while, lingering against his lips before pulling away completely, with flattering eyes. 

When she opens them again, Jon thinks he might drown in the blue of her eyes and the fierceness of her look. 

“I’m hungry,” she states.

“Yeah?”

Dany nods, slowly. She takes his hand and pulls him off to the opposite side of the kitchen, where she’d seen his mother come from a while before, towards his bedroom.

They have their first time to the aggressive note of cellos and violins from a playlist she had appropriately selected before kissing him with her usual eagerness and undressing him first.

He’ll never forget the way her eyes had watched him in awe, lingering way too long on the gashes of his scars. All the girls he’s been with before looked away from them, either out of respect or disgust— he never bothered to ask— but Dany… she’s _mesmerized._

They make love for the first time and everything about her is so intoxicating that his mind goes dizzy. The sounds she makes, the feeling of her skin, her kisses – she never wants to break contact with his lips – it drives him crazy. Only once do they stop kissing; he breaks the kiss to stare at her and she’s _perfect._ Under him, above him, beside him, everywhere, she fits. 

He looks at her and he cannot believe there was a time he didn’t know her. 

They make love for the first time and Jon feels like they have been doing this for the past days, the past year, the past decade. Maybe they met centuries ago, and she was a powerful queen who didn’t need a brave king by her side, but then eventually they found each other and even in that universe, they fit. 

* * *

  
Dany wakes up to the smell of roasted bacon and the scent of his cologne on her pillow. It’s not a combo she’s familiar with, but she thinks she might get used to it easily, if he’ll let her.

Wrapping the sheets around her body, she walks out of the dark room and heads to the kitchen where she spots him at the stove, bare chested, with a spatula in one hand. The scenario reminds her so much of when he’s busy preparing coffee in the café, the same energy he puts into making sure everything for his job is right, just like he’s doing now with their breakfast, his raven locks tied in bun like the time Missandei revealed his name to her. It feels like ages ago, instead of _weeks_. She can’t believe around a month ago she barely knew his name, and now she’s wearing his bedsheets and walking barefoot in his house as if she’s done this a billion times before.

She approaches him silently, warmed by the sight of him and the morning sunlight.

“So you can cook.” Dany peeks at the pots from behind his back.

Jon jumps slightly at hearing her voice so close, clearly not expecting that, which makes Dany chuckle a bit.

“Terribly, I warn you.” He leans down to pecks her on the lips and she melts at the contact. “‘Morning.”

“Good morning.” She beams at him. “Where’s your mum?” she adds, checking the hall.

“At work.. She left an hour or so ago.”

Dany checks the clock on one shelf and reads ten. She knows Jon’s shift starts in around two hours, so they don’t have to be in a hurry, at least.

Jon sets the table with their meals: bacon and French toast with orange juice. They sit in unison side by side, their arms brushing comfortably as they start eating. 

“This is really good,” Dany moans, tasting the roasted bacon. 

Jon smiles. “Thank you.” He takes a sip of his juice. “How did you sleep?”

She turns to him, eyes locking on his. She hadn’t noticed how long his eyelashes are before, and she spends a couple of seconds staring at them before answering. “I honestly cannot remember the last time I slept so long without waking up in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll be your morphine any time you need me to,” he jokes.

“Oh yeah?” She smirks, still watching him. “You might end up being my new addiction.”

“Can’t believe there’s something that could compete with theine.” He turns her chair so that she’s now forced to face him.

She laughs. “She’s a tough one.” 

“So are you.”

She closes the distance and kisses him, meeting him halfway. Dany won’t ever tell him, but since they’ve shared their first kiss, she’s taken note of every type of kiss they’ve had— something she’s never done before, of course. Though, there’s this kind of versatility in the way he kisses and touches her, as if he could mould every kiss and every touch to something different,depending on the occasion.

Right now, his kiss tastes like oranges and his lips are soft, only slightly swollen at the corner from a bite she gave him last night. And it’s slow— not the heated slow of their first kiss, but a sleepy slow, the morning rhythm that feels like sunlight and warm mugs.

He pulls away and kisses her on the cheek with such tenderness that it makes her heart warm, then he keeps eating. Dany stands there staring at him only a bit longer before cutting another piece of bacon. 

“Can I ask you something?” she says tentatively.

He hums in affirmation.

“What are those scars on your chest?” Dany asks, curiosity taking over. 

Jon’s eyes go blank, detached from reality, as if absorbed in his memories. 

“I got stabbed.”

Her eyes move down from his face to the gashes on his torso, one of those spreading right to the left side of his chest. If they mean the same definition of stabbing, there are so many more questions to be answered. 

“I told you I was working with the Night’s Watch.” She nods. “And we were taking care of homeless people and refugees. Back then we were settled at the Vale, where there’s a high rate of poverty and crime. Me and and my comrades… we had different opinions on who “was worth saving,” as they said. There were ill people, and the stockpiles of food and drugs weren’t enough afford to help everyone, so instead of requesting other provisions from King’s Landing, which would have required an extra budget, they opted for making a selection of people. I didn’t agree.”

He takes a bite of his toast. Dany sits silently with wide eyes, waiting for the worst part to come.

“We were about to leave the Vale but there were a lot of people who still needed help, among them a girl who I was fond of… I was in command of the Unit, so I decided to demand extra provisions from the Ministry. I knew we couldn’t afford those, but I was ready to pay back any future debt in order to save those people. Why should some be worth helping and others not? What kind of cruel selection is that?” he asks, his look distant, filled with nightmares. “My colleagues – I can’t call them friends anymore– disagreed. There was a fight. I can’t remember much of it, I just know that when I woke up I was at the North’s hospital and the girl I tried to save was dead.”

He finishes, and doesn’t meet her gaze, which she’s partly glad for, so he won’t see the wetness in her eyes.

She presses her lips together in an attempt to restrain her tears from falling. Even though his attention is now back on his breakfast, she can see the sadness in his look, like a veil that blocks the light out of his sight. 

A wave of affection makes her hand stretch forward, and comes to rest on his shoulder, squeezing it in solidarity. 

“I know what it feels like when people you thought you could trust blindly betray you,” Dany tells him in earnest, trying to keep her voice from shaking and her own nightmares from invading. “I’m sorry, Jon. You didn’t deserve any of those things.”

He smiles, the veil of sadness gradually disappearing. “Thank you.”

She smiles back, and kisses him softly on one cheek, making his smile spread wider on his face.

“What are your plans for next weekend?” he asks her after a few minutes. 

“Uhm, none.” She tries to recall her schedule, but with Rhaegar in town she shouldn’t have appointments at the nursing home, and all the university meetings are set for midweek. “You got something in mind?”

Jon grins. “I want to take you somewhere.”

“I don’t like surprises,” she warns him; still, her heart can’t help but beat too fast at the brightness in his eyes as he looks at her like that.

“This one you will.”

“You’re way too self-confident about my tastes.”

“I haven’t heard a complaint so far about my choices in actions.” He smirks, and she knows he’s thinking about last night. 

Without being able to control it, Dany feels her cheeks redden a little, and Jon’s smirk widens at the effect he has on her. Damn feelings. 

“Yet,” she concludes, trying to keep it cool.

“Don’t you trust me?”

Her heart stops. 

Trust. That’s such a heavy word for her— for both of them, she supposes, considering Jon’s past. The fact that he’s asking it so lightly, with a smile on his face and sincere eyes – _gorgeous_ brown eyes – almost hints to her he’s not giving the word the right weight. 

But maybe it’s actually the simplicity in his question that lets her realize how far they have come. It’s the sense of comfort she feels around him all the time that, with her eyes fixed on his and her chest swelling, makes her nod at the end.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Of course I trust you.”

* * *

Recounting two full weeks of Daenerys full immersion has been easier to think than to say. Especially when these last two weeks, for how short the time seemed to be, have been so intense. Anyways, Jon thinks he might have done a decent job retelling everything, judging Sam’s awestruck expression at the end of his story. 

His best friend blinks several times and finally closes his mouth, which had been gaping for the entirety of Jon’s updates. 

“So what are you guys now?” Sam asks at the end, recovering from the shock of the news.

“What do you mean?” Jon frowns.

“Are you dating? Friends with benefits? Together?”

“I– we haven’t talked about it. About us.” He suddenly feels claustrophobic. “Why is it so necessary to label it, by the way?”

Sam shrugs, turning around to the coffee machine to prepare drinks. “It’s not. Unless you want to be exclusive and might feel upset otherwise.”

“Exclusive?”

“Whether she can fuck other people or not.”

“Eloquent.” But he had actually never thought about it, maybe taking for granted that she wouldn’t. Not after everything they shared, anyway, not after having seen the stars in her huge sea blue eyes when she looked at him. Maybe it was just a moment of weakness? Maybe she doesn’t want what he wants or feel what he feels. Problem is, he barely knows himself what he wants from her. 

_Everything_ , he would say instinctively. 

“Don’t get paranoid,” Sam cuts his flood of thoughts.

“ _You_ made me paranoid,” Jon snaps, making rests to the clients. 

“I make you reflect over things _you_ don’t consider,” Sam retorts, imitating his tone.

At that, Jon lets out a heavy sigh. “I know,” he concedes. “I won’t talk to her about it now, though, she has too many things going on to make her waste her time over sentimental things.”

“All right,” his friend says, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Just, don’t let it get to the point when you’ll explode. If it’s something that bothers you and you want to make things clear, you should do it before it gets too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“To fix it up.” 

Jon doesn’t know what that means, exactly, but as Dany walks in the coffee shop right at that moment,her hair reflecting the warm light of the evening like she was made of it, Jon promises himself that whatever thing he’ll build up with her he will put all his efforts into not letting it crumble down.

* * *

Reading Jon’s name on her mobile screen with an incoming call for the first time is way more thrilling that she thought it would be.

She has no control over her heart when it starts pounding so hard automatically, so without a second thought, she picks up the call.

“Hey,” she greets him, her tone light, despite the excess of excitement.

“Hi, am I bothering you?”

“No, of course not. Is everything alright?”

“Aye, I…” There’s a pause in which Jon mumbles something she can’t quite make out, and he seems nervous, struggling to use the right words. “I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess.”

There’s no need to check her own reflection in a mirror to know how flushed her cheeks are. Dany can feel the heat pooling under her skin and a dumb smile forming already, which makes her thank god for being alone in the living room. Otherwise Missandei would witness the whole conversation with an endless smirk.

She must’ve been speechless longer than she thought, because Jon suddenly clears his throat and breaks the silence.

“How are the meetings going?” he asks, and Dany is glad for the change of topic. University she can handle. Feelings – not so much. 

“They’re all very interesting. I’ve also talked to a few professors from other universities about my thesis, and they gave me some tips and left me their contact information for future references. Others were kind of skeptical, but I still appreciate their availability.”

“Why skeptical? About your thesis?” 

“Yeah… uhm, there hasn’t been anyone who’s proved what I want to propose.” 

Now Dany expects to hear the usual turn down on her ideas, about the fact that her thesis for a masters in Psychology is based on a utopian ideal that she hasn’t tested yet. 

“And what’s that?”

“The topic?”

“Mm mm.”

“Alternative preventions to schizophrenia.”

“Alternative to what?” 

“Drugs.”

“And you haven’t proved it yet.”

“I’m trying.”

“All right.”

His answer is so obliging that it makes her eyes narrow in suspicion, even though she knows he can’t see it. There’s a moment of silence, something unsaid hanging between them like a frustrating burden that she can’t decide whether to ignore or delve into. She’s never been good at ignoring troubles, though.

“What do you think I should do?” she snaps, her tone more demanding than she planned it to be.

“I… I’m not a Psychology student,” he stutters. “I don’t think I can give accurate suggestions.”

“Try it,” Dany encourages, more curious than exasperated now. “I’m working on a new theory to prevent a mental illness, my research is hardly supported by any specialist and my thesis should be done within two months. What do you think I should do?”

He hesitates for a while, before speaking. “I think whatever the outcome will be, it still will be a contribution to research, no?”

She frowns. 

“If I show no results it’ll be useless.”

“No, it won’t. In the worst case, you’ll just demonstrate your hypothesis is wrong so that researchers on schizophrenia will rule that method out in the future, and won’t waste time on proving it because you already did.”

Dany takes a moment to consider that. 

“That is… rude and brilliant at the same time.”

“You’re welcome?” he asks, unsure.

A laugh escapes her mouth and somehow her heart feels a bit lighter with the new perspective Jon gave her. 

“By the way,“ Jon then adds. “I wanted to tell you about the trip! I’m picking you up on Saturday and we’ll be back on Sunday, so bring your toothbrush and pajamas.”

“Mmm, bossy.”

“You like it?” She can imagine the smirk on his pretty face even through the phone. 

“Maybe,” she drones, smiling. “I’m still not sure how I feel about this surprise.”

“It’ll be amazing, I promise,” he reassures her in a soft voice that has her heart melt slightly. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” 

Dany scoffs immediately. “I _love_ heights.” 

“That’s what I thought.”

“Very well, this is getting interesting.” Dany grins, but she’s far from admitting to him how excited she really is. 

“Told you.” His voice is just a whisper now, as if he was getting closer to her, if only he was there with her. “Okay, I’ll let you rest now. Goodnight Dany.”

“Goodnight Jon,” she replies against her will, because she’s becoming familiar with their usual chats. Everything about talking with Jon helps bring peace to her mind, from his calm tone to the perfect balance of jokes and rants and confessions that they fill their dialogues with. She’s never found anyone so easy to talk to.

When Jon’s face comes up in her mind the moment she closes her eyes, Dany doesn’t even try to fight it back. On the contrary, she lets the thought lull her sleep, until his image is nothing but a faded dream, and the last thing she can remember is the shine in his dark chocolate eyes, warming her in her sheets.

* * *

Dany’s head jerks up at the sound of the gear stopping at her block. 

“He’s here!” She hears Missandei shout from the living room. She tries to refrain the instinct to run down and meet him; instead, Dany walks into the hall to join Missandei, who’s now kneeling on the sofa, peeking out of the curtains to spy on Jon.

“Dei!” Dany scolds her. “What are you doing?”

Missandei turns to her in surprise at hearing her voice in the room, but her shocked expression is quickly replaced with a playful grin, the one that always makes Dany regret having told her best friend all about her love life.

“I’m excited for you,” the brunette sighs, beaming at her as she steps closer to her in the foyer. 

“It’s just a trip,” Dany concedes, trying to placate Missandei’s enthusiasm, though she fails miserably when her friend jumps for a hug. Dany, for her part, can’t help but chuckling, unable to contain her own excitement.

“This is the best break you could take,” Missandei states after pulling back from the hug. Her smile fades, eyes narrowing at once,spotting Dany’s reaction to her statement. “Isn’t it?”

“...Yeah.”

“What’s that face?” Missandei frowns, scrutinizing her.

“I brought a book.” Missandei’s eyes widen so much Dany thinks her friend might murder her with just a look. “ _Jon_ told me I could!” she then adds to justify herself. Plus, she’s never really seen Missandei mad, and wants things to stay that way. “I swear I haven’t insisted on anything, he brought it up himself. He just warned me not to bring the laptop ‘cause there won’t be internet.” 

“All right,” the brunette concedes finally. “But only because I know you won’t actually study a thing and the book itself is enough to keep you at ease.” 

Dany smiles, amused. That is actually a pretty accurate diagnosis. “Thank you.”

The bell rings in that moment, her eyes darting to the door automatically, a smile spreading and heart hammering. When she turns to Missandei, her friend is already handing her the travelling bag, the mischievous grin now replaced by a warm smile.

“Enjoy the weekend.” She kisses her goodbye on her cheek.

“See you tomorrow, Dei.”

Dany closes the door behind her and reaches Jon in the street where he parked the moto. His eyes light up the moment he spots her, waving a hand to greet her while the other holds the helmet for her.

“Got everything?” he asks her, giving her Arya’s helmet. 

She nods with a smile, but notices Jon keeps studying her curiously, mouth slightly open as his eyes linger on her face and her figure in general. “What’s the matter?” She looks down at herself, checking if there is dirt on her top or something.

Jon huffs in laughter. “No, no. You’re just… different.”

“What do you mean?” She tilts her head quizzically. 

“It’s the first time I’ve seen you look this casual.” He points at her outfit – a cropped top, high waisted jeans and sneakers – with a nod. “And I’ve never seen you with your hair loose either.” 

A part of her wishes he didn’t notice the change of look for a plethora of reasons, the first one being the fact that she hasn’t worn anything casual with a man in _ages._ Even though an outfit is just clothing, classy clothes somehow make her feel more powerful – the illusion of a pretty rose that could reveal herself as dangerous if you only turn her to the side with thorns. But with Jon all those habitual strategies seem to crumble away, the overwhelming feeling of trust when she’s with him overcoming every fear she’s used to being submitted to.

She opted for no masks today. Monday she’ll put them back on, maybe, but these two days with him, he deserves to see all of her. 

But instead of telling him all of this, she just pouts.

“It makes me look younger,” Dany says, brow furrowing.

He smiles softly, starting the gear. “I like it, though.” 

And they set off.

She keeps her arms tangled around Jon’s waist the whole ride, watching with curiosity as the landscape changes around them. They pass through the large streets of the North, the ancient grey buildings casting shadows over their figure; they go around the frosty lake, now starting to melt with springtime just around the corner. Dany barely notices the change in atmosphere until she realizes the incline of the ground, insinuating they’re climbing higher. While in the city centre green areas are rare, now she’s beginning to spot trees every now and then, the sight of the woods from afar in front of them telling her it’s dense. 

Jon takes a curve and suddenly the peak of the hill reveals a forest green sea below them. Dany’s breath gets caught in her lungs at the gorgeousness of the view. The forest doesn’t seem dense like the ones she used to visit in Pentos, but there are more rivers, creating silvery veins among the green of the trees, and the blank spots with no vegetation are covered in rocks or other plants that from their height she can’t distinguish, but Dany can’t help but gape at the beautiful contrast the nature below them makes. 

Her head comes to rest on Jon’s back, torn whether to close her eyes and let all the sensations flood inside of her or to keep taking the landscape in. 

“You all right?” Jon shouts in front of her. 

Dany nods against his back, his warmth and smell filling her senses. “Just enjoying the view,” she says out loud so that he can hear her. “I can’t believe I’ve been living all these years in the North without knowing about this side of the city.”

“Well it’s kinda far away. We’ve been riding for half an hour by now,” he tells her. “Besides, it would be quite impossible to come over here without a vehicle.”

“Right,” she concedes. “Anyways, it’s gorgeous.”

Dany sees his smile through the rear-view mirror. “We’re almost there , by the way.” 

Indeed, they keep riding for about ten more minutes, before Jon pulls over near a wooden fence circling a cottage. 

The property stands on a large field protected by the fence and the trees all around it. Inside those, the cottage takes up most of the space, leaving the rest to a couple of log cabins and the well-finished lawns surrounding it. The rural house is far from elegant and it looks quite old from the outside, but the stucco walls and the small windows nestled in the roof makes it look pretty in its own style. 

Dany turns to Jon, a silent question hinted in her eyes already, but instead of answering,Jon takes her hand and walks her to the opening of the fence, but before they get to ring the bell, an old man, wearing a basic long coat and boots, comes out of the house and approaches them.

“Jon!” he shouts, giving Jon a strong hug to greet him. “I thought you would’ve arrived in the morning.” His accent is harsher than Jon’s, but the warmth in the old man’s eyes while speaking to Jon tells her he’s all but a rude man. 

“We decided to set off after lunch to avoid the peak hours of traffic,” Jon answers with a smile. 

“Aye, that was wise.”

Jon turns to her, one hand resting on her lower back automatically, as the other waves at the man beside him. “Dany, this is Davos, the former owner of the coffee shop, as well as a dear family friend.” 

Davos stares at her for a minute, then takes her hand and shakes it softly. “Pleasure.”

“I’m Daenerys,” she introduces herself politely. “It’s nice to meet you, Davos. Your house is beautiful.”

“Oh, thank you my dear, it certainly shows its age better than I do.” Davos grins at them. “Come in, guys. I’ll make you some tea.” 

“Thank you.” Dany smiles back, and follows Jon, who slings both bags over his shoulders, grinning as well. 

They walk in, and Dany takes a while to observe the interior of the house, all almost completely made of wood, except for some details in white stucco, like the façade. It’s welcoming and cozy— the warmth of the wooden surfaces, the colors of the furniture and the soft light coming from the chandelier above would put at ease. 

“Here’s your room.” Davos leads the couple upstairs, and stops in front of a cream-colored door. “Take your time to relax and put away your things. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

They both thank him and after exchanging a grin, they enter the room. 

Of course as she gets in, the first piece of furniture to catch her attention is the double size bed, the pastel orange sheets reminding her of the sunsets in Pentos and for that, and many other feelings, her heart speeds up at once. 

She sits on the edge on the bed, caressing the soft material and letting her body get absorbed by it. “So what is this place?” she asks when Jon joins her on the bed.

“It was a family holiday house when me and my cousins were younger,” Jon says. “Now we don’t really use to spend the holidays together anymore. Robb is married, Arya is always busy with training, me with work, Sansa with exams… Bran can’t walk anymore and–“ the rest of the sentence dies in his throat and the look on his face gets suddenly sadder, lost in memories. He pauses just a few seconds, before shaking his head, as if to clear his mind. He continues, “Anyways, we rented the house to Davos when we decided it had become useless. We come here to visit every now and then, though.”

She nods, but notices the dark tinge in Jon’s look hasn’t gone away for good yet, so Dany silently scoots closer to him and tangles their fingers together over the sheets. 

He lifts his head to look at her, his dark eyes warm as they meet hers. Even though the smile he gives her is still painful, he doesn’t look away; instead, he leans down and kisses her cheek, lingering there, prolonging the contact. 

“Do you like dogs?” he asks after separating. 

“What?”

“I mean, are you afraid of them?”

“No. No, of course not, I like dogs.” The change of topics is so random Dany struggles to put it all together now. 

Jon smiles widely, and it _finally_ reaches his eyes. “Come on, I want to show you something, then.” 

Even if she wanted to, the sparkle in his eyes would never let her say no to him.

Dany follows Jon downstairs, and after having warned Davos about their direction, they walk out of the house, crossing the lawn until they get to the two log cabins settled in front of one another. They actually look bigger than what she glimpsed before from the motorcycle. Although the walls are made of wooden rods, they’re thick and supported by a steely skeleton that make them look like mini chalets. As she approaches them she hears something inside, some sort of movement and breathing. 

“Okay, stay behind me,” Jon warns her.

Slowly, he opens the cabins, and a second later, he’s flat on his back on the ground,six enormous dogs – no, _wolves_ – tackling him,stepping on his chest. Under normal circumstances, it would be a horrific situation, if it wasn’t for the fact that all those enormous wolves were literally wagging their tails with excitement, falling to the ground to let Jon scratch them like they had no bloody idea of their size, Jon’s joy filled laughter mixing with their happy howling.

“So,” Jon starts, catching his breath. “These are our wolves,” he says with a grin, as if he was talking about kittens. 

Daenerys blinks, gaping at the huge dogs in shock. They’re beyond beautiful, with their immaculate fur and magnetic eyes, but this is the first time she’s sees a wolf at all, and getting introduced by not only one, but _six,_ is a lot to process. 

She’s just opened her mouth to say something when one of the wolves springs at her and starts bumping her leg with its nose. Dany can’t help but chuckle;instinctively, she extends a hand to caress the wolf, finding the warmth of its fur comforting to the touch. 

“Nymeria, stop it!” Jon hisses when the wolf lifts a paw to Dany in search of more scratches. 

Dany laughs, honestly amused by their behavior. “It’s okay, she’s lovely.” She goes down on her knees to keep petting the wolf, now lying on her back. 

“That’s Arya’s wolf,” Jon explains to her, crouched to caress another wolf, the only one with completely white fur. “Every one of us has one. I mean, me and my cousins.”

“That one is yours?” Dany points at the white wolf beside him with a nod, noticing the look of pure love Jon holds while hugging the animal. 

He nods. “He’s Ghost.” Ghost, for good measure, lifts his head and licks Jon on the cheek, which has him in giggles immediately. 

Dany’s heart melts at the sight. If they would’ve ever asked, she never would have imagined calling paradise a place with woods, log cabins, and wolves, the opposite of her hometown.

“We can take ‘em in the woods later, if you want,” he tells her. “Not all of them, of course. You could take Lady.” He points at another grey-ish wolf busy with bathing herself. “She’s Sansa’s wolf, and she’s by far the most docile of them. I honestly have no clue how Sansa raised her so calm. When we were little she barely trusted anyone with feeding her; she would only accept food if it was Sansa herself giving it to her.” 

Dany laughs, and for some reason she pictures a young Jon trying to mix recipes up in order to feel accepted by his cousin’s dog. 

“I would love to take her out for a walk.” She smiles at him. Then, looking at the wolves, realizes something doesn’t add up. 

“Wait,” she interjects. “So, this one is Arya’s,” she rests a hand on Nymeria's head as she counts, “Yours is Ghost, Lady is Sansa’s ...and the others?” 

Jon looks doesn’t, the sad smile of moments ago resurfacing, and she _hates_ it, but the cause of it is still a mystery.

“My eldest cousin, Robb, has Grey Wind, Bran’s got Summer.” He points at two other wolves gathered around him, one larger than the others and the other darker. “And this one,” he circles the last of the wolves with one arm, “is Shaggydog. He belonged to my youngest cousin, Rickon.” 

Her smile disappears. “Belonged?”

Jon nods slowly. “He, uhm, there was a car accident… we lost him three years ago.” 

He doesn’t meet her eyes as he says so, and goes back to scratching Ghost’s ears, with visibly less energy than before.

Dany’s heart feels like stone in her chest, and suddenly the bright sunlight of the evening is not enough to warm her up. Swallowing down the lump that had just formed in her throat, she stands up and sits down next to Jon, giving his wolf a pat in the process. 

She slowly brings one hand to Jon’s cheek, forcing him to look at her, and the depth in his chocolate eyes is still so unexpected sometimes that it still makes her chest expand very time her eyes fix on his. He looks at her, his gaze holding onto memories of nightmares, and he tilts his head toward her hand like a reflex. 

“We don’t have a sunny past, you and I,” he whispers, his voice low and hoarse.

She would like to scream for that, yell at the skies that it’s bloody unfair to make this man unhappy. To let his little brother die, to let people die around him, to assume he can handle so much darkness only because he’s a source of light himself. 

“No, we don’t,” she tells him softly. “But we can make our future sunny.”

A spark of light illuminates his face at her reply, and the thought that _she_ ’s the source of that spark makes her feel all sorts of things. 

They go back inside after a while, and Dany feels like they have established something unsaid about their future, something that there’s no rush to plan and no pressure to explain, yet. 

There’s still time, and for now, they’re fighting their demons together. 

* * *

The last time he wandered into the woods of the holiday house, it was two months ago.He was hiking with Robb, and his eldest cousin had told him Talisa was expecting a baby, and he wanted Jon to be the first person to know. That was one of the happiest days in Jon’s life. 

Spending the whole evening in the woods with Daenerys reminds him of that jolt of happiness that had seemed unreachable in his mind these days, hidden among all the other bad memories. She’s like a breath of fresh air; Jon has always had an introspective attitude, yet around her, he feels so comfortable, like he’s only ever felt with his family. 

He finds out back in Pentos she owned a snake. A python, to be exact. It was actually her brother’s, because of course you don’t give a snake as a present to a little girl, but Viserys didn’t care for it— he barely fed him that one time a month he had to, so Dany did it, and eventually it became more hers than her sibling’s. 

“I called him Drogon,” she had told Jon, while crossing a rotten trunk. 

“Your little dragon, hmm?” 

She smiled, almost shyly, silently admitting how old her passion for dragons was, just as old as his was for wolves. 

It’s like their lives have gone straight in parallel lines, and they’ve met only now, overcoming any mathematical theory that affirmed the opposite. 

They come back to the hill right in time to watch the sun set below the trees, Lady and Ghost weary beside them after the long walk, Dany’s hand softly brushing his. Without tearing his gaze away from the burning sky, Jon takes her hand and tangles their fingers, his thumb drawing small circles over her knuckles. 

She lets out a sigh, as if something had just settled inside of her. He knows what it is; he feels it too. 

Then the sun disappears through the forest and they go back inside, never letting go of each other’s hands while walking side by side. 

* * *

She didn’t notice the hot tub in the bathroom when she first came in the house, too focused on the view from the mini balcony of their room to have a proper tour of the interior.

Dany sinks into the water with a heavy sigh, her legs immediately feeling lighter at the contact with the hot flood of the water and aromatic oils she put in. Her head relaxes, falling back on the towel she positioned behind her neck, eyes shut closed to immerse herself in relaxation. 

Her eyelids become heavier, and she feels her head tilting gradually to one side, but Dany has neither the energy nor the will to raise it. She’s about to fall asleep when a sudden peck on her nose startles her and brings her back to reality. 

Jon’s face appears blurry at first, but as her eyes focus again, Dany spots his grin a few inches over her head and the weight of his hand on the crook of her neck becomes more concrete. 

“Hi,” she breathes out, smiling back at him. 

He kneels behind her, his cheek touching her for the closeness. “Hey.”

“You bathed the wolves?” she asks, glimpsing the tucked sleeves of his shirt. 

“Aye. The day Ghost will remain still during a whole bath I will be too old to enjoy it.” 

Dany chuckles, leaning her head closer to his, and Jon reacts at once, leaving small kisses on her dimple, then tracing a path with his mouth, his kisses getting wetter, more lingering. She sighs into it, her arm pulling out of the bath to tug him closer from behind. He smiles against her skin, biting gently at her earlobe as his hand moves lower down her body, reaching one breast inside the water and–

“Ouch!” He suddenly withdraws his hand, jumping back away from the tub. 

Dany turns around quickly, afraid an object might have fallen on him or something. Instead, when she looks at him, she finds him blowing at his fingers, the same that had sunk in the water a few seconds before.

“Dany, it’s boiling!” he exclaims.

“Is it?” She has no trouble at all with the temperature, but the look of disbelief held in Jon’s eyes makes her so uncomfortable Dany almost wishes she could feel the heat as well.

He keeps watching her, a mix of exasperation and shock depicted in his expression that shows he’s clearly thinking “here we go again.”. It lasts a minute, before at the end he huffs in laughter and shakes his head. “I can’t believe I’m dating a fireproof girl.”

And with that he leaves the bathroom, warning her that he’ll be waiting for her in their room, but Dany is not fast enough to answer back before he walks out, too shocked for his choice of words and everything that that involves. 

It’s been so long since she used the D word with someone that she barely recalls what it even entails beyond just the bond of sex and occasional dinners. That’s the kind of relationship she had with Daario. It doesn’t take her long to make comparisons and realize what she has with Jon is so much more than sex and dinners and light chats. He has learned more about her in the past couple of months than Missandei in the past year.

In contrast to what she expected, the awareness of her own feelings settles inside of her, making her feel at peace instead of upset. The overwhelming feeling grows in her chest gradually, just like it has done throughout the previous months without her willing. Not that she is opposed to that today; it’s too late by now and she’s glad for it.

Getting out of the tub, Dany wraps a towel around her body and comes back to the bedroom, a part of her still thinking about how Jon’s hands had moved down her body, setting fire to her with just a simple touch. 

“Okay,” Dany starts while entering the room, “you gotta finish what you started back there ‘cause I have no bloody hope of–“

The rest dies in her throat, the playful grin fading away when she sees Jon sit on the edge of the bed, head bent down, focused on something in his hands. Her blood runs cold the moment she realizes the object he’s holding is her phone. 

“Sleeping,” she finishes with a whisper, more to herself now, because from the dead look in Jon’s eyes, all the joy of seconds before is gone, replaced by a painful lump in her throat and shivers on her skin. 

Jon raises his head and meets her eyes, although now his look is blank, stripped of any emotion in a way that makes a hole form in her stomach. Somehow that look is even more painful than the sorrow she saw in it hours ago. Even _worse_ when she’s the cause of it.

She’s been so used of seeing all kinds of feelings held in those beautiful dark eyes when they were directed at her, that Dany never thought about the possibility of being looked at with anything less affection by him. 

With a stone face, and after a long pause, Jon shrugs slightly, and looks back at her phone, like he’s trying to tell her so many things with fewer words. 

“I wanted to check the time ‘cause I left my phone downstairs,” he explains, and his voice is so flat it makes the lump in her throat ache like a ball of thorns. “I uhm… I didn’t mean to read it.”

He pauses, but she’s not brave enough to ask him about the content. 

Jon puts her phone back on the nightstand, avoiding her eyes. “Daario asked what you’re doing tonight.” 

“Jon, I–“

“No, it’s fine,” he interjects, standing up abruptly, still without making eye contact. “I didn’t have any right to know about it and we haven’t made anything clear about us. It’s fine,” he repeats.

“Jon, can I explain to you?” Daenerys takes a step forward, hesitant. He doesn’t move, but there’s so much pain and _anger_ visible in his expression, a wild look that scares her and intrigues her at the same time, yet it makes him totally unpredictable with his reactions.

“Explain what?” he blurts out. “You don’t have to explain anything, Dany, we don’t have anything established... You owe me no explanation.” 

Then, without another word, he moves past her to walk out of the room. 

“Stop doing that,” Dany snaps, keeping her voice as even as possible. She turns around quick enough to glimpse Jon’s back go rigid, before slowly turning to her, a glint of shock breaking through his serious expression. 

“Doin’ what?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. 

“Stop walking away when there’s a problem.” Her tone raises a bit against her will. “Look, I’m far from being perfect. I don’t know what _idyllic_ image of me you made up in your head, but I’m so not perfect.” She pauses, licking her lips. When his look softens a little at her admission, Dany takes it as permission to get closer. “I’ve spent _years_ working on my image, on my attitude, building masks over masks, adding layers over layers to get through the shit, to create a defense system that I once swore no one, _ever,_ would get to tear down. Not again.” She takes another step towards him to close the distance and takes his hand. “Until you, Jon.”

She feels his hand react in hers, tangling his fingers with hers, so perfectly— just like she discovered not long ago. 

“I’m terrified to open up to people, and yet with you… With you, I don’t even struggle to do it, it just comes naturally.” 

Jon nods. “I know.” He doesn’t look convinced, though, a silent question visibly caught in his mind. 

Dany throws a look behind her shoulder, toward the nightstand where her phone is. 

“Daario is a friend. We’ve been hooking up occasionally for almost a year now.”

“Dany, I don’t want–“

“I haven’t answered his calls or texts for a month.” She doesn’t let him finish. “Now, if you would please do your math, you can easily guess why.”

Jon stays silent, and she doesn’t even spot a slight hint of effort on his face in trying to remember the day they had their first kiss, around a month ago. 

“You didn’t have to,” he then says. Dany’s chest swells in relief at hearing his tender voice has returned. 

“I _wanted_ to,” she insists, tightening her grasp on his hand. “I didn’t need anyone but _you_. Do you get it?”

“Yeah,” he nods again with a smile. “Yeah, I do.” 

“I want to talk to him, though,” she tells him, eyes soft as she stares at Jon in awe. “I’m not in love with him, but I care about him and he deserves to know that the reason I won’t see him anymore is because I’ve found the one for me.”

Any single trace of doubt in his eyes is demolished by her last sentence. 

She’s willing to stay up all night if that is what it takes to convince him about her feelings for him. She would talk endlessly, she would even give him a bloody lecture with slides and pictures to let him know just how into him she is. 

Luckily enough, none of that seems to be necessary for tonight. 

With a shaky sigh of relief, as if he had just purged all his doubts and fears about her, he cradles her face and smashes his mouth to hers. He takes her slightly aback with the impetus, but the moment his lips open and their tongues touch Dany can’t help the moan of pleasure that escapes her. 

In just one move Jon disentangles her towel, making it fall at her feet, leaving her completely bare in front of him.

He pulls back from the kiss to watch her, his eyes drinking her in with such adoration Dany’s heart literally _hurts_ with how much she wants him. He scans her body, taking in all her details, and Dany has never felt so at ease when being observed. 

Jon’s eyes fix back on hers, his hands dragging her closer by the waist, and she lets him pull her towards him like a magnet, finding it impossible to do otherwise. 

“You’re _so_ beautiful,” he says, leaning into her and kissing her again, slower this time, teasing her with scraping and brushing and biting, making her groan in frustration. Only then, he deepens the kiss, smiling as he presses his lips to hers. 

There’s something tremendously erotic in being fully naked, pressed against his body, still covered in clothes while his hands travel erratically over her skin, as if they could memorize her features by only touching her. It is a good feeling, indeed… but it’s not enough. 

It takes her around fifteen seconds to pull at the hem of his shirt and remove it from him, aiming right after for the button of his pants. He helps her kick them off, throwing them somewhere in a corner of the room, before focusing back on her lips.

Jon’s hands move from her lower back to grasp her bum, and without any further ado he lifts her up, never breaking the kiss, Dany’s arms locking around his neck automatically. 

She expects him to take her towards the bed, instead, with no warning, he goes to the opposite side of the room, back is pressed against the cold wall and Jon’s mouth attacking her neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses over her collarbone until he reaches her pulse point and licksit. Every inch of her skin that he touches with his lips burns. . 

The contrast between the cold behind her and Jon’s hot body pressed to her front makes her dizzy, lost in the sensation of his skin against hers, that feeling even warmer compared to the coldness at her back. He’s got one arm beside her head, elbow on the wall and the hand cradling her scalp, mimicking a pillow, while the other is still on her ass to support her. 

Jon presses harder against her core and Dany literally _whines_ , her eyes shutting closed at the feeling of him so close to her entrance, wet and ready for him.

She opens her eyes back and he’s staring at her, eyes black, deep and so _so_ adoring. Suddenly, she feels like she can’t hold his look, not when there’s so much hidden behind it. It would scare her to death to reflect herself in them only to see that same look in her eyes as well. 

The passion of minutes before is replaced with an intimate moment, shyer, the clock stopping; now they have all the time in the world because, for the first time, Dany sees love in the darkness of his eyes, and maybe he drowns in the sea of hers too, when he finds the same.

One of her hands untangles from his neck only to move lower, resting over the scar above his heart. 

“You survived death,” she whispers, and if he wasn’t so close to her he would’ve never heard her probably. Out of nothing, the horrific feeling of losing him spreads in her chest. 

He looks at her, serious, as he tucks a rebellious silver lock behind her ear. “You’re fireproof,” he replies, for the second time that night. 

She smiles, her head leaning onto his palm, “We’d be difficult to defeat.”

He kisses her softly on her lips, “Together.”

“Together,” she breathes out the moment Jon pushes into her, and every broken piece comes back into place with every thrust he makes. 

He pushes in and out of her carefully, setting a nice rhythm that makes her orgasm build slowly, but the friction of their bodies connecting so perfectly is so good that Dany’s hips start moving faster, meeting his thrusts with more energy and letting him know her needs. Jon pants, a rivulet of sweat tracing the curve of his cheek, and he kisses her hard, more eager than before as he pumps stronger into her, making her moans grow louder and incessant. 

With one last push his head falls on her shoulder, gripping her hip tight enough to leave a mark the following day, but she couldn’t care less – any sign that she’s his, she will take. Dany comes right after with a long, suffocated sigh, and her nails dig into the muscles of his back. 

They stay like that for a while, foreheads touching and panting in sync, until Jon pulls out and gently lies her on the bed, caressing her shaky legs in the process. 

Unlike the first time when he spooned her, tonight they fall asleep facing each other with their hands tangled between them, and they remain that way until the sun rises in the East. 

* * *

A ray of sunlight filters through the curtains and hits Jon’s face, making his eyes flutter, so used to the darkness of his room. His eyes adjust to the dim light of the room after a while, and his heart skips a beat at the sight in front of him. 

Dany is still asleep, her beautiful face relaxed like he’s rarely seen when she’s awake, her mouth full and slightly open, so tempting. The long locks of her hair are spread all over the pillow, framing her face with silver flames and reflecting the morning light, the smell of her inebriating him, making all the memories of last night surface. 

Unable to keep himself from feeling her, his hand rests on her side and starts brushing her skin gently, so pale and immaculate, like soft ivory. He keeps watching her, fingers still tracing paths on her ribs, right above the three-dragon tattoo he knows he’s covering, when he sees her stiffen a little, and then her eyes slowly open, revealing two blue skies drawn in them. 

She’s _breathtaking._

“Were you watching me sleeping?” she asks with a grimace, her voice sleepy.

“Aye,” he replies, not even attempting to deny it. 

She huffs, sinking her face into the pillow,her cheeks slightly flushed, and Jon thinks he’s never witnessed anything more adorable in his life. He cackles, leaning down to leave a kiss on her forehead and scoots a little closer.

“I’m going to go downstairs and make some tea,” he tells her. “Don’t fall back asleep, okay?” 

She purses her lips in a clear attempt to restrain a chuckle at his demanding tone, and nods, but the soft look in her eyes suddenly changes, lighting up with fire, as if something had just clicked to her, and her gaze turns somewhat challenging. With her eyes boring in his, she pulls the sheets away from her and stirs nonchalantly, her back curving upwards to create a perfect arc, legs bent on the bed and slightly open. Jon follows her movements, hypnotized, eyes immediately landing on the curve of her gorgeous breasts, responding to gravity by falling a bit to the side. 

He swallows hard. 

Opening her eyes, Dany turns to him, now a mischievous smile playing on her face as she stares at him in a way that sends jolts of desire through his body.

“So?” she whispers with a fake naïve tone. “Aren’t you going to go down?”

He does go down, but the kitchen can definitely wait.

Jon meets her downstairs afterwards, her hair collected into a bun as she approaches him in a white silky gown and gives him a soft smile, as if he hadn’t just made her come with the tip of his tongue about twenty minutes before. 

“‘Morning,” he says as he hands her the tea. “Tea latte.”

Dany chuckles at the familiar action, her eyes beaming at him and taking the mug in her hands. He sits next to her, sipping on his coffee, until Dany breaks the silence.

“Where’s Davos?” she asks, inspecting the house in search of the old man. 

“I don’t know, he left a few minutes before you came down. He said he had to go downtown, don’t know for what.”

“Oh, all right.” She nods. “We’ll be able to say goodbye to him before leaving today though, right?” 

He smiles at her concern. “Of course.” 

“Good,” she states. “So what’s the plan for today?” 

He sips his coffee. “Well, since the weather is good, I thought we could go for a hike and reach the lake. Or we can get there on the moto if you don’t feel like walking.” 

Dany immediately catches his lips, giving him a quick kiss on the mouth. Even when she pulls back, her face remains only inches away from his, her gorgeous eyes sparkling with excitement. “I’d love to,” she says, sweetly. “And I don’t mind walking at all, besides–“ 

Her sentence gets cut off by the ringtone of her phone on the table. Dany stands up, throwing a glance to the clock on the wall to check the hour, clearly unused to receiving phone calls early on Sunday mornings.

Her brows furrow as she glances at the screen. “It’s an unknown number.” 

Jon looks at her, and just give a small shrug, clueless, before Dany picks up the call.

“Hello?” 

Her expression changes almost instantly.

For some reason, Jon’s heart speeds up, as if connected to hers — in the good and in the bad. 

“What?” she breathes out, one hand coming to rest on the table for support, visibly unsteady now, and Jon is already on his feet and getting closer. 

Panic makes its way onto her face, despite her miserable attempts to look impassible, bad habit that she has. It doesn’t trick Jon, who learned a while ago how to read her. 

Right now, though, he wishes he didn’t have such an ability. Her flushed cheeks from minutes before turn pale like a ghost, wide eyes holding both terror and shock where he glimpses tears forming already, despite the way she tries so hard to hold them back. 

“I– Yes. I understand.” Her voice is nothing but a shaky whisper. “Is my brother already there?

“I’m gonna… Just…” Jon is immediately at her side when he realizes she’s having trouble breathing. “I’ll be there as soon as possible.” She dismisses whoever was on the phone with that last statement, spoken with too much effort for what should be required. 

Her phone falls to the ground, her knees shaking slightly, about to give up if Jon wasn’t fast enough to catch her, his big arms supporting her in place as he leads her to the nearest chair. 

“Dany,” he urges, worried. “What is it?”

“My dad,” she pants. “He…”

But tears start falling down, only a couple ones at first, and then an uncontrollable stream. “He– he was sedated. They had to s-sedate him.”

“What? Why?” 

Her sobbing ceases only for a second, the time she needs to swallow the lump in her throat down and let the truth out.

“He almost killed a nurse,” she whispers.

Jon feels his blood run cold in his veins, the only thing keeping him from getting paralyzed in shock sitting right in front of him, in worse condition. 

“Was he hallucinating?” he asks carefully.

She nods, her eyes squeezing closed, only to allow another cascade of tears to cross her cheeks, but he notices at once that she’s not feeling well. He grasps her hand and it’s sweaty, just like her face, despite the rest of her body shaking with chills, as if it is unable to respond to any command from her. 

Her chest moves up and down way too fast for regular breathing, her eyes open now but veiled in fear, seeing without actually _looking_ , and when she returns the hold on his hand, her grip is so tight that her knuckles go white. 

The reality of the situation hits him like lightning in the daylight, now more aware than ever that he refuses his heart let the panic come through. Rationality will save her, not panic. He can’t allow himself to do that now, not for him, and even less for her. 

“Dany” he calls her, trying to keep his tone as calm as possible, “It’s alright. Shhh…” 

But she won’t stop shaking, eyes blank and bloodshot, creating a contrast with the vibrant blue of her irises. 

“Calm down, it’s okay,” he repeats. “He’s safe now, everyone’s safe. He didn’t hurt anyone.” He pauses, but she still doesn’t say anything. 

“I… I honestly don’t know how this works.” He sighs, wishing he was able to say more, to give her a fully illustrated lecture about how her dad’s illness could potentially get better. But he can’t, and Jon’s afraid that not even Dany nor the doctors can say that. “I just know that tonight is under control, and I’m sure the doctors know how to handle situations like these. I don’t know if he’ll be fine, but I know he’ll be safe.” 

However, her tears don’t stop. Her breathing settles a little but it’s still too rapid, her face grimacing in pain sometimes, like she has something devouring her from the inside, and he doesn’t know what to do, he’s _powerless_. Once again in his life he’s forced to watch someone he loves suffocate in grief without being able to change it. 

“Dany,” he pleads, and his hands cradle her face gently, like he’s done so many times— but never to dry her tears. “ _Please._ I’m here, it’ll be fine, I promise. It’ll be fine.”

Dany takes a long, painful breath, before managing to speak. “It’s not that.” Her voice is trembling so badly he hardly makes her words out. 

Jon looks quizzically at her, and this time, as their eyes meet, hers aren’t blank anymore, now vivid and focused on reality. 

“I…” she trails off in a small voice, as if she is trying to admit something for the first time, to him, and also to herself. “I’m not scared for him. I’m scared for me.” 

“What do you mean?” He caresses her cheeks to encourage her to go on, but Dany looks down, refusing to make eye contact. 

“I’m afraid I’ll become like him,” she says between sobs, and his heart breaks at the confession. “I’m _terrified_ of losing my mind, of losing control over my brain. I’m afraid I would do stupid things… and hurt people around me.” 

A rivulet of cold sweat passes over her temple, and the room is silent for a while, except for the cracked sobs and the short breathing that seems only to get more irregular at every word she says. 

Even without being a Psychology student, he knows schizophrenia has a higher probability of showing up if there are other cases among family members. 

“Dany.” He takes her hands in his and forces her to stand up, because she has started crouching in her seat, almost in a fetal position, still shaking. To both their surprise, she follows his lead, allowing him to put her onto her feet in front of him and support her. 

“Dany,” he repeats, moving moonbeam locks away from her face. “I promise you, I’ll do whatever is in my power to not let that happen.” 

His tone is firm, and maybe from the honesty held in it, he has her attention. She watches him with huge blue eyes, and where before he had seen only fear and panic, Jon can now spot a sparkle of hope in them. 

He presses his lips together, and acts by instinct, moving forward to tug her into a hug. When Dany doesn’t oppose, he takes it as a good sign. 

“For as long as you allow me to be next to you, I promise you I’ll take care of you,” he whispers to her, his hug tighter, hands wide on her back. “Mind, body, soul...stomach.” She huffs a laugh at that, and his heart feels already a little bit lighter. “I’ll take care of you.”

His back twitches slightly at the sudden feeling of her hands on it, a gentle movement, almost shy compared to the scratches she left there the night before. Muscles contract against his will, and then relax at once, and Jon thinks that if she wants him to be the only one able to witness both sides of her, than it can’t be anything but an honor for him. 

“What if I hurt you?” she breathes out after a while, against his shoulder. 

He chuckles softly. “You would never.”

“What if.”

“You won’t,” he states.

“I don’t want to go mad like him.” She has stopped shaking at the contact of his body, but the trembling in his voice is still audible, despite the regular breathing. “But _what if_ I do?”

“Then I’ll be there to balance you.”

It’s a simple answer, but also the most realistic he can give her right now. 

She seems to consider it. After a few minutes, she lets out a long sigh, as if an enormous weight had just crumbled away inside her, finally leaving her breathing right, and Jon knows it’s enough, for now. 

They pull back from the embrace, eyes meeting almost immediately, and he holds back a sigh of relief when he sees the regular sea color of her irises is back, no red or tears marring them. 

“I’ll drive you to Black Castle now, okay?”

She nods. “Thank you.”

He smiles back, and leans down to kiss her softly on her lips, before heading upstairs to put some clean clothes on. 

“Jon!” she calls to him as he climbs up the first step.

He turns around, and she’s already staring at him. There’s so much adoration and fondness in her look, it makes his chest swell.

She doesn’t speak initially, just stands there and watches him. 

Then, Dany takes a deep breath. 

“I think I love you.”

The rate of his heart explodes. It’s so unexpected he thinks he might cry out of joy.

Instead, he just smiles, wider than ever, reflecting her same look. 

“I love you too, Dany.”

And _finally,_ even the last shadow of panic fades away from her expression. 

Despite her reddened face from the recent cry, her makeupless skin and weary eyes, her messy bun and tired look, Jon has never seen anyone more beautiful in his entire lifetime.

* * *

They arrive to the care home at noon, Dany rushing inside without even bothering to ask the nurses which way to go. Jon follows her blindly as she takes lefts and rights through the pale-colored corridors of the building.

They had written an apology note for Davos and left it on the kitchen table; Dany had felt _miserable_ leaving the house without being able to see the old man once again, although she promised herself that she would come back soon and swing by for a visit. That’s what she wrote in the note, hoping it will do for now.

She’s so absorbed in her own thoughts that, taking one last turn, Dany stumbles into someone and almost loses her balance, if Jon hadn’t caught her in time. 

“Mom!” she hears him call behind her. 

Dany had been in such a hurry that she hadn’t recognized the woman in front of her. 

“Lyanna, hi,” she says, finally catching her breath, also weirdly surprised to find her there, still unused to the idea of Jon’s mother working in the rehab centre. 

In contrast to the first time Dany met her, now the brunette woman is wearing white scrubs, her brown waves tied up in a pony tail and her face clean and pale, almost as much as Dany’s, except for a light touch of mascara and blush on her cheeks. 

“Guys!” She startles as well in surprise, but her attention focuses on Dany right away. “Daenerys, your father is still resting. The doses they gave him this time were considerably high…” Lyanna trails off, unnecessary to add further explanation. “Your brother just fell asleep in the chair. He’s been here all morning.”

Dany’s brows furrow quizzical, a silent question hidden in her expression.

Lyanna’s golden eyes widen at first, then after blinking several times she adds, “I mean, I suppose, you know–“ she stutters, and points at Dany’s head. “The hair.”

“Oh. Right.” The Targaryen badge never goes unnoticed. 

“Mom,” Jon starts, taking a step forward and checking his watch. “Weren’t you supposed to finish your turn about an hour ago?” 

Lyanna’s mouth open to reply, then closes at once. When she finally speaks, her voice is slightly trembling. “I worked overtime,” she tells them. “Go see your dad. Jon, I’ll see you at home.”

The couple nod, and with that, the woman leaves. 

As Lyanna said, Dany finds her brother sleeping in one armchair inside their father’s room, his silver curls messier than she’s ever saw and two dark rings under his eyes, spoiling the harmony of his face. 

In front of him, on the bed, rests her father. She barely can look at him, a mix of pity and sadness making it impossible to stare at the old man. Dany feels Jon’s hand on her lower back as they both step inside, glad that he doesn’t feel uncomfortable meeting her family for the very first time in such an occasion. 

She gets closer to her brother and shakes him with a gentle push on his shoulder to wake him up.

“Rhaeg,” she calls softly. “Rhaegar.”

Rhaegar’s eyes flutter, fighting against the weariness and the shining light hitting his face through the blinds. Finally, after a few seconds, he wakes up; his eyes, so similar to hers but slightly smaller, open up and he starts looking around him, at first disorientated.

“Hey, little sister,” he greets her, his voice still sleepy. “The doctors called you, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” she says, and sits on the arm of the chair next to him. “You can go home and rest, if you want.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but Dany throws him a look that, despite her offer of options, doesn’t really give him much of a choice. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “You sure?”

Dany nods. “Yes, don’t worry. I’ll be with Jon, anyway.” She turns around to make her point, and Jon steps forward at the same time, coming to her side. 

The moment Rhaegar spots him, he looks at him with a certain curiosity, his face impassible as he always is with strangers, but something in his ice-coloured eyes lights up. What to make of that, she’s not sure.

Beside her, Jon clears his throat and outstretches one hand. “I’m Jon Snow, sir.”

Rhaegar huffs softly at the appellative, and shakes Jon’s hand. “Please, call me Rhaegar, or I’ll feel terribly old.”

“You kinda are,” Dany deadpans. Her brother always had an eye for fashion and self care, but even if he does look younger than his actual age, there’s still a gap of twenty five years between them that she can’t ignore. 

Rhaegar gives her a light bump with his elbow, sneering, before circling her back with his arm and tugging her in a quick hug of dismiss.

“Take care of yourself, little sister,” he tells her, kissing her on the forehead. 

“And you too. See you soon.”

Her brother waves goodbye to both of them and leaves them alone with her sedated father.

Dany sighs. “Jon, I can remain here alone, it’s no problem. You don’t have to stay.”

He smiles, almost amused. “That’s not an option.”

She knows none of her retorts will make him change his mind — Dany would do the same, after all.

“Very well,” she concedes, taking her brother’s former seat. “Then would you tell me a story, Jon Snow?” 

Dany could really use a distraction, and whatever he can offer her that might tune out her inner fears and the image of her statuary father in front of her, she will take. 

“Okay.” He sits in a chair near hers, eyes locking on hers like a magnet, as it has been for a while now. “Have I ever told you that Arya has, like, a _gift_ with impressions?”

Dany smiles instantly, and shakes her head.

“Well,” Jon starts, “She can imitate everyone’s voice and just their attitude in general. When she was younger she got so much into it, practicing a lot and stuff, that she would call herself ‘no one’...”

So Jon tells her the story of Arya — or to better say, No One — and Dany finds herself holding her breath sometimes, other times laughing, and when he tells her about how creepy it was to find out his cousin was literally _creating_ masks of real life people, Dany can’t hide the chills forming on her skin, even for just a few seconds. 

His stories keep her grounded, his voice calming her nerves, and when her dad opens his eyes for the first time that day, it seems to her like it’s been only minutes, instead of hours, since they entered the room that afternoon.

The doctors rush in the room, and her first impulse is to leave the room, too scared of staring at her father’s eyes and seeing herself reflected in them, instead. It’s Jon who encourages her to stay, reassuring her that he’ll be right next door.

But Aerys is still too dizzy to speak, the hangover of the drugs not faded yet, and she can’t help but be glad for it at the moment. How would she be able to comfort her own father when she’s not sure about how to comfort herself first?

They leave the care home an hour later, all the new prescriptions in her bag and the absent eyes of her father stuck in her mind like a ghost that she knows will appear at any moment to haunt her.

Not today, though. 

Rhaegar’s house is so _not_ in the Northern style. The creamy walls, the intricate ornaments around the windows, the excess of balconies and the little fountain in the middle of the lawn makes it look like a fairy tale house, rather than a northern one. The contrast it makes with the other residences in the neighborhood has always fascinated her. 

Right after leaving the nursing home, Jon had driven her home, making sure she would be okay and safe, but Dany reassured him immediately and told him Missandei would be at home with her. 

She soon finds out Missandei is actually not at home, but had decided last minute to spend the whole day out with Grey, inspired by Jon’s idea. The plan to a perfect day before their finals start, her best friend had told her with a text. 

Ah. Life’s sarcasm. 

So, staying home alone had been an easy option to rule out. She also refused to call Jon; he had spent the whole day worrying about her and helping her handle her problems. She will not be that selfish to call him again only because she’s not able to stay alone in her own apartment and he has just happened to become her anchor throughout the last month.

Rhaegar ended up being the best plan. Partly because she’s always found comfort in her eldest brother, whether in his words or in his Netflix account. She doesn’t care much, as long as Dany knows that she will leave his house happier than she was when she entered it. The more selfless part of her just wants to know if he’s alright, since she hadn’t the chance to talk to him properly in Aerys’s room.

That’s how after dinner time she gets off of the bus, unconcerned about her casual outfit and makeupless face, and walks to her brother’s house.

She’s about to ring the bell of his gate when the front door swings open and someone steps out of it, the sound of light laughters and heels leaving Dany little doubt about the situation. 

Back in Pentos, since she was a little girl, she had been accustomed to seeing young women coming in and out of her house all the time, having two older and, for what she hears, attractive brothers around. 

Rhaegar might be a middle aged man now, but he is quite charming, Dany must admit. 

So no, seeing him with a woman is the least of her concerns. 

Then the steps get closer to her, walking on the rocky path of the garden, the melodic laughter fading a bit as the woman leaves the house, shouting a goodbye to her supposed lover.

And Dany’s muscles go rigid, petrified.

She doesn’t need to hear much of that voice to know who it belongs to, the union of sweetness and the soft northern accent making the identity unmistakable. 

Before she has time to move away or run, Dany is standing face to face with Lyanna Stark in the flesh. 

The ghost of recent laughter fades on the woman’s face, turning paler with every second spent in front of her, and honestly, Dany has never related this much with someone in her life. 

Lyanna’s mouth opens, a cracked sound coming out without actually saying anything, but when she tries again, a shout from the garden precedes her. 

“Lee, you’ve forgotten your toothbrush!” Rhaegar’s neat voice echoes between the two women, and at that, Lyanna can’t help but grimace.

Really, it’s a pretty comedic scene, Dany thinks, if she wasn’t _raging_.

Her brother reaches them right away, smiling at Lyanna first, the smile quickly disappearing when his eyes land on Dany’s petite figure.

His mouth drops open, and on other occasions, she would totally laugh enough to have cramps in her stomach. 

But now? Now she’s only fire and blood.

Dany feels her nostrils tremble from anger as she speaks, her voice deadly calm.

“Unless nurses need a toothbrush to treat people now,” she starts, glaring at the couple, “I _want_ an explanation.”

“We knew each other at the cure home,” Rhaegar tells her, over a mug of tea that smells like cinnamon. “She actually doesn’t work inside dad’s ward, but a couple of years ago they changed his room, remember? Well, the first time I went to visit him after that transfer I got lost and she,” he takes Lyanna’s hand in his, “helped me find the room. From that moment on we just kept meeting each other randomly, coincidenentally… until we decided to meet willingly,” he concludes, looking away from her. 

“How long have you been dating?” 

“A year,” Lyanna replies, her voice small.

“A year,” Dany repeats, more to herself, still unable to process it. “You’ve been hiding this from Jon for _a year._ ”

She’s been kept in the dark too, but it’s different; Rhaegar is her brother. He has dated so many girls she barely knows all their faces, can’t even imagine their names.

But Lyanna is Jon’s mother. That’s so much different, with so many more responsibilities.

As if she was reading Dany’s mind, Lyanna interjects her thoughts. 

“I know what you’re thinking about but, believe it or not, I’m doing this for him — not telling him. I want to,” she insists, seeing Daenerys ready to protest. “I really plan to talk to him soon. The only reason I’ve decided to wait so long is because I wanted to protect him,” Lyanna explains with pleading eyes, and Rhaegar’s hand shifts in hers to tangle their fingers together.

“Jon never knew his father… and rightfully so, really. But I can’t allow myself to let him know about my whole private life and mess up with him like it’s a show. I’m his mother, not his sister. I’ve dated men before Rhaegar and none of them was remotely good enough… not for me, but for _us_ , for me and Jon. No one, until your brother.” She looks at Rhaegar with tender golden eyes and a smile of affection that Dany has seen so many times already directed at her. The anger she felt moments ago starts to fade slowly, replaced by pure understanding and a feeling of solidarity toward a woman she barely knows and yet… she’s the woman that made her brother fall in love, and the woman that gave birth to the man she’s in love with now. 

“We knew about you two the day we met the first time,” Lyanna continues. “I remember I was _so_ determined that day to tell him, if not that night, the following one. But then you came in and how could I tell my son then, that I’ve found the love of my life in his girlfriend’s brother? If before it had been a shock he could handle, now it certainly was a bigger deal.”

“We talked about it a lot,” Rhaegar interjects. “We’re going to tell him next week, we promise. Until then, could you please keep the secret, little sister?” 

One week. One week of lies and omissions to the purest and best man she knows. 

Dany looks at her brother, and how his ice blue eyes shine with passion. She looks at Lyanna and her smile is so sweet and _identical_ to Jon’s. Then she watches their tangled hands, the way they fit perfectly together like they were made to fill each other. 

And then, a week doesn’t seem so long anymore.

Dany nods, Lyanna lets out a laugh with teary eyes, and Rhaegar lifts her sister up from her chair in his big arms like he used to do so many times when she was little. 

It’s going to be worth it, Dany knows it.

_***_

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

Summertime in the North is gorgeous. 

People who don’t live there are usually skeptical about choosing it as a potential holiday location, due to its icy disposition and winter-y reputation. However, with the warm weather, the green usually covered in frost starts to show up, gardens and forests blossoming with new life and the rocky streets glittering when hit by sun rays. It looks so different, but definitely in a nice way.

As for Jon, he has always had a hard time handling the hot weather, so he personally finds the North‘s Summer the perfect temperature of all time, mild and windy, unlike in other cities. 

So he couldn’t help but agree with his mother when she decided to have her engagement party at the start of August. 

When Lyanna told him about it, Jon’s first reaction had been to hug his mother by the waist and lift her up from the ground in joy, making her laugh uncontrollably in his arms. By his side, he recalls Daenerys throwing a glimpse at him, eyes beaming and arching as an effect of her smile, the way he has grown to love more and more every day. They had congratulated the couple, their hands tangled as well as the four of them gathered in a family group hug.

Family. Daenerys is family now. 

Not that she wasn’t before, but since the day Dany stepped into Jon’s life, she hasn’t stopped marking every day of it permanently, tying an invisible string between them that Jon hopes to be indestructible. And the perspective of having their two families united together is just the peak of their gradual, emotional climb.

The sight of his mother tangling a white ribbon — not so different from the string Jon had in mind— on Rhaegar’s wrist, and him doing the same, makes him feel suddenly more self conscious than ever about his future plans.

Lyanna and Rhaegar kiss, chaste and delicate because of the crowd around them, now gathered near the marble fountain of Rhaegar’s garden, when the couple had set out an exquisite banquet for their guests. In theory, the party wasn’t supposed to be this big; they had decided to invite only their closest family and friends. Jon had put himself in charge of sending the invites and calling the guests, taking that responsibility away from his mother, who he knows has easy nervous breakdowns over organisational situations. However, he had soon realized it wouldn’t have been as “private” as Lyanna and Rhaegar had hoped to be.

The Stark family is _way_ more numerous than what they thought. 

Luckily, the Targaryens are few enough to compensate with the inequality of numbers. In fact, Daenerys had revealed to him in advance that not all her relatives would’ve shown up, some because of family issues or internal fights between the members, some due to the costs of the trip from the South, which during summertime has also increased. The choice of the month, though, had been planned so that Daenerys’s relatives would've had to pay only once for travel, instead of twice, celebrating both Rhaegar’s engagement and Daenerys’s graduation with her masters, which happened only a couple of weeks before. 

Jon observes the crowd of guests cheering the soon-to-be-married couple, blond and dark heads creating a beautiful contrast between the colorful flowers of the garden, first separated into distinctive groups, then mixing up gradually. 

It’s such a harmonic atmosphere it sets peace into him. The most beautiful paradox he’s ever witnessed: ebony and silver, north and south, ice and fire. 

The banquet lasts until evening, and when the sky starts turning electric blue and the first stars appear, he hears a few goodbyes among the guests and soon Jon, Dany and his cousins are the only invites left. 

“Hey.”

Dany appears from behind him, a stemmed glass full of champagne in one hand while the other grasps a side of her long indigo dress, lifting it up a little so that she can walk better in the grass. 

“Hi,” he answers with a smile, getting closer as well, his eyes drifting inevitably to the plunging neckline and the way her dress smoothes her curves so perfectly. 

She clears her throat and his look darts back on her face.

“You look amazing,” he says helplessly, as to justify himself at her amused expression. 

“You’ve told me around five times already.” Dany restrains a chuckle.

“Aye, you _really_ do.” He watches her tuck a silver blond curl behind her ear, staring at him tenderly and taking him in.

For the first time since he first met her, Dany had decided to attend a public event with her hair loose, a moonbeam cascade falling down her back and shining in the night like she is some sort of goddess, and even though they haven’t had much time to spend together during the whole party, busy with their respective families, Jon never took his eyes off her for a moment. 

“Kiss me?” Dany looks at him expectantly, getting on her tiptoes to be closer to him, despite the help of the high heels. Closer, always closer to him. 

Jon doesn’t need to be asked twice.

He leans down and closes the few inches of distance between them, suddenly feeling like miles. She meets him halfway, moaning softly as their mouths collide in a lingering kiss that makes the night turn bright and the stars colorful in his head. 

“You taste like champagne,” he tells her, licking his lips as they separate, slowly. 

“Robb wouldn’t stop filling my glass,” she says with a pained look. 

Jon laughs. “Oh, really?” He steals the stem glass out of her hands, takes a quick sip and rests it on a table nearby, before pulling her closer by the waist. “My cousin is trying to get you drunk!?”

“Tipsy, “ she corrects him, cackling. “And he justified himself by saying that I need to practice for when his child will be born.”

Their laughter gets cut off by Sansa and Arya approaching them, warning them that they’d leave in five minutes with Robb. 

“You need a ride home?” Sansa asks Dany with a polite smile.

“Oh, no. No thank you, Sansa. I’m actually spending the night here so that I can help my brother clean up tomorrow.”

“I see. All right, I guess we’ll see you around, then.” And to Dany’s shock, Sansa takes a step forward and embraces her in farewell. 

“Goodnight!” Arya says, and jumps into Jon’s arms for a tight hug, as her usual. 

Dany waves the girls goodbye and then they’re alone in the garden, his mum and her brother busy inside with settling the presents they’ve got. 

“I-”

“If-”

They start speaking in unison, laughing right after it. She’s the first to speak.

“Please, don’t leave,” Dany tells him with pleading eyes, her hands coming to rest over his chest. 

Jon chuckles. “You know I don’t want to. But it’s your brother’s house, I can’t sleep here.” 

“Okay.”

Jon knows that concessive tone and also knows the mischievous look that she’s holding now well, like she’s his and he’s hers and there’s little to do about that; no stranger house can divide such inseparable poles. 

“Okay?” he asks, surprised, already swallowing.

Dany nods slowly, her blue eyes darker and drinking his soul like it’s the best of liquors, as her hands slip down his torso and reach for his belt, sending shivers all over his body in the process. With a firm pull, she tugs him closer to her, until his nose is touching hers and they’re sharing the same breath, the rest of the air suddenly unnecessary to them.

“Then, will you stay an hour more?”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are candies! Please let me know what you think about the story &
> 
> THANKS FOR READING xx


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